


Contingency Plan

by LerxstInSpace



Series: Contingency Plan-verse [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adam-Centric, Canon Universe, Canonical Character Death, Curtis is a good friend, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mostly Plot Some Porn, Ouch, Panic Attacks, Porn with Feelings, Pre-Kerberos to S8, Terminal Illnesses, Whump, playing slightly fast and loose w/canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-06 05:39:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 36,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17339600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LerxstInSpace/pseuds/LerxstInSpace
Summary: Takashi… Curtis... if you’re both watching this, that means two things.Number one, Curtis did exactly what I asked him to do. Thanks, baby. I know this had to be hard for you.And number two… well… ever since I got pulled off the MFE squadron I’ve been on Sanda’s ass about getting the weapons on the regular fighters upgraded and, well… she stopped taking my calls, and every time I try to nag her in person I get told she’s in a meeting or something. So... I guess that’s my answer. We’re not getting upgraded. The weapons we’ve got are going to do nothing. I’ve tested… I’ve run everything we could possibly do with what we have through the simulator and nothing fucking works. Nothing. If the Galra hit us, and she doesn’t want to send out the MFE fighters first which we all know she won’t, we get sent out instead and… how am I supposed to tell my squadron we’re going to be cannon fodder? God, Curtis, how the fuck am I supposed to tell you......so number two, it means that happened.[In which Adam is determined to make sure both of his boys are happy after he's gone. More of a "hard M" than actual "E" but figured I better round up on account of some spicy bits.]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> OK so just as a warning: this is NOT Broken Mirror-verse, which means when Adam dies, he stays dead. just throwing that out there. I still love him, I still ship the hell outta some Adashi, but dammit I love Curtis too. WE REALLY CAN HAVE BOTH Y'ALL PLEASE DON'T FIGHT
> 
> Apologies to anyone who came for Shurtis porn, this is not the fic you're looking for, but rest assured I am working on that.
> 
> For the record: in Broken Mirror-verse, Adam and Curtis just stay friends instead of hooking up.

Adam genuinely does not find it concerning that one of his friends had, and even possibly _still has,_ a crush on his fiancee.

 

In Curtis’ defense, _everyone_ has a crush on Takashi. Takashi is the Garrison’s rock star, he’s one of those guys who can walk into a locker room full of straight guys and without a single touch or a word to any of them, leave a locker room full of suddenly-maybe-not-so-straight guys chewing their fingernails to the quick as the gay panic sets in.

 

Adam knows how lucky he was to land the guy. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time (read: stuck in a simulator with him for hours and hours, five days a week). And, well, Curtis is just so _nice_ about the whole thing. Sure, he was a little sad when he found out Adam was dating the guy he had the warm fuzzies for, because that’s normal (in his defense, Adam did not know at the time that Curtis had more than the average warm fuzzies for him and he felt kind of bad when he found out). But then he decided that dammit, Adam and Takashi were his friends and he wanted his friends to be happy and _he would go down with that ship._

 

And look, it’s not like Curtis is or will ever be in any danger of being single for the rest of his life because… well… Takashi might set off gay panic, but Curtis is this weird combination of “tall, dark, and handsome” and “precious and utterly non-threatening cinnamon roll” that makes straight guys sort of skip over the “panic” part entirely and just shrug and get on with their suddenly-maybe-not-so-straight lives.

 

Which is why it’s so fucking weird that he _is_ single.

 

More than once, Adam has wondered why the hell Curtis is single, why he’s ever been single for one minute. Oh, he’s _dated_ guys, but it just never seems to click and a month or so later, he’s single again. Even stranger: all of his breakups have been completely amiable (other than that one time he got his heart pretty horribly broken). He’s still friends with almost all of his exes (except that one, and that one never bothered him again after Adam “accidentally” broke his nose).

 

It’s a mystery Adam thinks he’ll never solve.

 

* * *

 

Things are going great with Takashi. They’ve moved in together. They’ve started thinking about rings. Adam enjoys what he does at the Garrison; he loves flying and he loves teaching and he loves playing piano for the chorus. Takashi loves what _he_ does; he loves flying and he loves teaching and he loves wowing the local school kids with all his space stories. They argue once in a while, but they talk it over like adults and work it out. They bring out the best in each other.

 

Takashi sort of… unofficially adopts a kid. Keith has, to put it mildly, been through some shit. He doesn’t remember his mom, she left when he was still in diapers. His dad was a firefighter and died on a call. He lived in a shitty group home until Takashi got him into the academy. He’s a good kid--at least he has the potential to be if he can get his anger management issues under control, and Adam thinks if anyone can get through to him, Takashi can. _I’m taking responsibility for him,_ he tells Adam, _you don’t have to do anything._ To which Adam replies _fuck a bunch of that, if you have a kid_ I _have a kid and I’m helping you with him,_ and suddenly they’re kind of a family. They decide that after they get married, they’ll talk to Keith about _officially_ adopting him. So now Adam isn’t just looking forward to having a husband, he’s looking forward to having a son.

 

Adam is training the next generation of ace pilots and Takashi is proud of him. Takashi is commanding missions and breaking records and making history, and Adam is proud of him. Keith is slowly but surely getting his shit together, and they’re both proud of him. It’s not the life Adam might have imagined when he was younger, but he wouldn’t trade it for anything.

 

It all starts falling apart the day he comes home and finds Takashi curled up in a ball on the couch clutching at his head, whimpering in agony.

 

* * *

 

Migraines, the doctor tells Adam. That’s all. Painful, but not life-threatening or anything. He sends them home with some horse-tranquilizer-strength painkillers. It takes two more days, but the migraine finally goes away. Takashi is fine after that.

 

Except it happens again a few weeks later. And _again._ Adam talks to some other instructors who sometimes have migraines. What they’re describing is not even close to whatever is leaving Takashi incapacitated in a dark quiet room for two or three days at a time.

 

Then other things start happening. Sometimes his hands or his feet just… stop working for a minute. He drops things. He trips over nothing. It’s concerning, but Takashi handwaves it off and Adam decides it’s just him being overprotective.

 

But then one morning after Takashi has gone to the gym--and Adam uses the term “morning” loosely here, by his standards if the fucking sun isn’t even visible yet it’s still night--his phone starts ringing. And ringing. And ringing. Whoever’s calling is _determined_ to get hold of him. When Adam finally reaches over and picks it up, he sees it’s Curtis calling, and his blood runs cold.

 

Curtis is also one of those disgusting people who gets up at 0-dark-thirty to go work out, and he’s kind of become Takashi’s workout buddy. So if he’s calling Adam this early…

 

“You need to come to Medical right now,” is all Curtis can say.

 

* * *

 

This is what Curtis tells him:

 

They were on adjacent treadmills, having a nice stationary run as they normally did, watching TV and chatting as they normally did, absolutely nothing unusual about any of this. And then the next thing Curtis knew, Takashi fell and cracked his forehead on the treadmill and got dumped off behind it.

 

That wasn’t the worst part, though.

 

The worst part was, he didn’t get up. He didn’t even move. He just lay there until Curtis jumped off his treadmill and turned him over, and then he lay there with his head in Curtis’ lap staring at the ceiling for a few minutes while Curtis pressed his towel against the cut on his forehead to try and stop the bleeding. He was breathing, he had a pulse, but it was like there was nobody home. That was when Curtis yelled for someone to call Medical, and shortly after that was when Takashi blinked a few times and asked Curtis what the fuck just happened.

 

Curtis asked him if he remembered falling off the treadmill. He didn’t. He remembered running, and the next thing he knew he was on the floor with his head in Curtis’ lap.

 

“Has that _ever_ happened!?” Curtis asks him as they’re sitting there in the waiting room, and Adam shakes his head. No. Nothing like that, at least not that Adam’s ever seen, and it’s terrifying.

 

Curtis is on duty that day and he reluctantly leaves, with a promise to call Adam as soon as he can get a break.

 

A few minutes later the doctor finally comes out to talk to Adam. They’ve moved Takashi to a room. They want to keep him overnight for observation, and to run a few more tests.

 

They think he might have a concussion from hitting his head on the treadmill, but that’s not what they’re most concerned about. What they’re most concerned about is, they think he had a seizure and if so, they need to find out why.

 

Adam tells the doctor about the headaches and the thing where Takashi’s hands and feet just stop working sometimes, and he nods and writes that down.

 

While he’s waiting to be let into Takashi’s room, Adam calls Iverson and lets him know what’s up and that they’ll both need subs today and possibly tomorrow. The words “medical emergency” come out of his mouth like someone else’s voice.

 

This doesn’t feel real.

 

* * *

 

When they finally let Adam into Takashi’s room, he looks… pretty normal. Other than the hospital scrubs and the monitors and the bandage on his forehead. He looks alert, maybe a little scared and who can blame him, he woke up like he did every morning and went to the gym like he did every morning and now… this.

 

Adam sure doesn’t blame him, he’s fucking _terrified._ But he puts on a brave face and gives Takashi a big hug and a kiss and pulls the comfy chair close to the bed so they can at least kind of cuddle.

 

“Don’t you have a class right now?” Takashi asks him while they’re watching shitty daytime TV, and Adam shakes his head.

 

“I called in. Called in for you, too. That’s what subs are for.”

 

Takashi snorts out a little laugh and nuzzles his forehead. “You really want to be stuck in here with me all day?”

 

“I’d _rather_ be stuck pretty much anywhere else with you all day,” Adam says, leaning up to return that little nuzzle along Takashi’s jawline. “But you’re here, so… yeah. I’m staying with you.”

 

Takashi sighs and leans his head against Adam’s. There’s a weird silence, like he wants to say something, but doesn’t.

 

A little while later a doctor comes to fetch Takashi for some more tests. Adam can’t go with him, so he stays in the room and texts Curtis to let him know what’s going on.

 

 _Sorry, just now going on break,_ Curtis texts back half an hour later. _Do you need anything? I can come by after I get off._

 

Adam considers that for a moment. _Yeah,_ he replies, _if you could stay with him while I grab some dinner that’d be great._

 

 _OK,_ Curtis replies. There’s a long pause. _He’s going to be OK._

 

Curtis was there, he saw what happened, and it scared the hell out of him. But Adam definitely appreciates the sentiment.

 

* * *

 

They get a diagnosis the next morning, and it’s worse than Adam ever imagined.

 

It’s some kind of rare degenerative neuromuscular disorder. In layman’s terms, the connection between Takashi’s brain and his muscles is breaking down, the issues he has now are going to get worse, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it. They could maybe slow it down, there are some drugs that might keep the worst of it under control, and he’ll have to wear an electrostimulator cuff pretty much 24/7. But they can’t stop it. If there’s a cure, nobody’s found it yet.

 

The doctor gives him a ballpark estimate of maybe two or three years of a more or less normal life. After that… _maybe_ another year, much of which he’ll likely spend in a wheelchair or in bed, before it kills him.

 

There’s no point in sugar-coating it. This thing is going to kill Takashi before he turns thirty.

 

“This isn’t going to change anything,” Takashi reassures Adam after the doctor leaves the room. “I can still do my job and I still want to marry you, if you still want me.”

 

Adam is not entirely sure Takashi heard what the doctor just said to him and if he did hear, it hasn’t fully sunk in. Because it _is_ going to change things. Takashi being dead before he turns thirty is going to change _a hell of a lot of things._ But this is not the time to split those particular hairs. This is the time to fucking _be there for his fiancee._

 

“Why wouldn’t I still want you!?” Adam sputters. “Of course I still want you.”

 

They release him shortly after that because there’s not really anything they can do other than put that electrostimulator on him and write him some prescriptions.

 

When they get home, Adam breaks down crying. He tries to do it quietly while he’s in the bathroom because he doesn’t want Takashi to see him, but… he gets busted when Takashi comes in looking for something.

 

Takashi scoops him up in his arms and carries him to bed, lays him down and kisses his tears away and holds him close. “This isn’t going to change anything,” he says again, and when he says it like that it’s so damn easy for Adam to believe him.

 

* * *

 

Most people would have listened to what their bodies were trying to tell them and slowed down a little, maybe even quit their jobs to enjoy what time they had left with their loved ones... but no, not Takashi.

 

He throws himself into his work. He keeps flying, he keeps teaching, he keeps being half of the only family Keith has, and Adam tries like hell to be supportive but it gets harder and harder every time Takashi volunteers for another fucking mission. Because he’s still doing that. Of course he’s still doing that.

 

He’s also still getting up at five in the fucking morning to go to the gym, almost every day. Adam asks Curtis to please keep an eye on him, especially in the weight room, and is thoroughly relieved when Curtis says he’s already on it. In fact, he’s already told Takashi in no uncertain terms that if he’s going to lift, Curtis is going to spot whether he likes it or not because _he_ sure doesn’t want to have to tell Adam that he dropped a fully loaded bar on his fucking throat or something.

 

Curtis generally doesn’t swear so he doesn’t actually say “fucking” but the sentiment is definitely there.

 

Adam doesn’t tell Curtis just how bad it is, though. He knows he probably should. Curtis is his friend, after all, and he’s Takashi’s friend too, but… he figures it’s not his place. If Takashi wants Curtis to know exactly what’s going on, he’ll tell him.

 

* * *

 

Life goes on more or less normally for a while, or as normally as it can with this thing hanging over them.

 

Then Takashi goes in for a checkup.

 

The doctor tells him he can’t drink anymore. He doesn’t drink much to begin with, the occasional beer at the ramen bar is about it, so he’s fine with that.

 

Then the doctor tells him he has to give up caffeine.

 

Okay. Takashi loves his coffee, so that’s… that’s a much bigger deal. But decaf is a thing, and on the way home Adam offers to pick some up. They end up pulled over in a parking lot, with Takashi curled up in an inconsolable sobbing ball in the passenger seat while Adam cradles his head in his lap.

 

It’s not about the coffee itself. It’s because that’s what finally really truly makes him understand what’s happening to him.

 

For the first time, he really understands that his illness _is_ going to change things. It’s going to change _everything_. It’s going to take his life away from him a little at a time and he’s never going to get it back.

 

First it’s going to take away the little things he enjoys, like his occasional beer at the ramen bar and his two daily cups of black coffee.

 

Then it’s going to take his ability to fly and the career he loves so much.

 

Then in two years, maybe three, it’s going to take his independence and his dignity and then it’s going to kill him. And there’s not a goddamn thing he can do to stop it.

 

So Takashi decides to cram as much living into that time as he can, and to him, living means flying. He decides right then in that parking lot while Adam is stroking his hair that he’s going to fly until he physically can’t get out of bed anymore. Which is… not what Adam was hoping to hear, but if that’s how he needs to cope then that’s what he needs to do.

 

More than once after that, Takashi gently asks Adam if he wants to break it off, says he wouldn’t blame him, says he doesn’t want Adam to be stuck taking care of him. To which Adam replies once again, _fuck a bunch of that,_ maybe they hadn’t actually gotten to the part where they said “in sickness and in health” out loud but Adam was already taking that _very_ seriously. The problem, he says, isn’t that he doesn’t want to take care of Takashi.

 

The problem is that Takashi isn’t taking care of _himself._

 

He’s doing the bare minimum the doctors tell him to--he’s wearing that electrostimulator and taking his meds, and he’s begrudgingly switched to decaf. Beyond that… he doesn’t listen when his body tells him he’s pushing it too hard, and he always pays for it. And when he does, Adam ends up nursing him through the aftermath.

 

And he keeps jumping on every mission he can. Sometimes he’s perfectly fine when he gets back. More often, he has to spend a day or two in bed before he can function again--and as soon as he can get up, he works twice as hard to make up for the downtime.

 

It’s starting to put a strain on their relationship--and on Adam’s mental health.

 

Takashi trips over something in a parking lot one evening--and at least this time, it’s just normal tripping over shit, it’s a legit case of “it was dark and there was a thing in the way.” Adam even sees the coat hanger caught on Takashi’s foot. But the second he’s sure Takashi is okay, Adam’s legs give out. He can’t breathe. He’s sure he’s having a heart attack. Takashi scoops him up and puts him in the car and floors it all the way to Medical and carries him into the emergency room.

 

Adam’s heart is fine. What he had was a panic attack.

 

While the doctor has Adam alone in the exam room, she asks him if there’s anything unusually stressful going on in his life right now. He busts out in incredulous laughter because _where does she want him to start?_

 

She listens while he gives her the short version. When he’s done she tells him that’s definitely a lot to handle and that he might want to consider talking to a therapist. For now, she gives him a prescription for a mild sedative to take the edge off if this happens again.

 

Yeah, seeing a therapist probably _is_ a good idea but when the fuck is he supposed to squeeze _that_ in? And how is he supposed to tell Takashi _hey I know it sucks that you’re dying but it’s really stressing_ me _out so now I’m seeing a shrink?_

 

When they get home Takashi puts him in bed and cuddles him all night, petting his hair and rubbing his back and whispering _I’m sorry, baby, I’m so sorry._ Because now he really, truly understands what this is doing to Adam. It’s been a horrible fucking night and Adam just wants to curl up on Takashi’s chest and sleep, but if this is what finally shocks Takashi into slowing down a little and taking care of himself, he considers it a net positive.

 

Things are better for a little while. Takashi even passes up a couple of missions. Really choice ones, too.

 

But it doesn’t last. It can’t. Takashi loves teaching but he loves flying even more _,_ and he can’t stay happy on the ground. He volunteers for another mission and Adam has another panic attack. At least this time Takashi told him via text so he wasn’t there to see it. Still, it’s a month-long mission--the longest since his diagnosis--and too much can go wrong.

 

But he comes back safe again. When he does, Adam _begs_ him to stop flying, to just enjoy the time he has left while he still can.

 

“What do you think I’m doing?” Takashi snaps, and he apologizes almost as soon as it’s out of his mouth but Adam still recoils as if Takashi had slapped him. “I _am_ enjoying the time I have left,” he says, more gently this time.

 

It still hurts. Because now Adam knows Takashi understands what this is doing to him… and he’s decided to keep doing it.

 

* * *

 

Up to this point, Adam has done a pretty good job of shielding Curtis from the worst of this.

 

He _should_ talk to Curtis about this. He knows that. Curtis is his friend, he’s _their_ friend, and there’s nothing wrong with requesting a little emotional support from a friend when one’s terminally ill fiancee is being a stubborn fucking self-destructive asshole and insists on risking his actual goddamn life because he thinks he has something to prove.

 

But he doesn’t. Because he knows Curtis still has that big soft spot in his big soft heart for Takashi, and how the fuck is Adam supposed to tell him that Takashi is dying and there’s nothing anyone can do about it?

 

Curtis knows Takashi has some kind of chronic illness, he was there when Takashi had that seizure at the gym, after all. But unless Takashi has told him--which he probably hasn’t--he has no idea what the extent is.

 

At least, he doesn’t until the day Adam is sitting in the chow hall staring glassy-eyed at the food he’s just sort of moving around on his plate after he’s been up all night with Takashi--they found out the hard way that his new meds can have some very unpleasant side effects if he eats anything too greasy or too spicy too soon after he takes them. And a good three-quarters of Takashi’s preferred diet is greasy, spicy, or both.

 

Adam can see Curtis sitting down across from him with his own lunch, just out of focus over his glasses.

 

“Hey, are you okay?” Curtis asks him gently. “You didn’t show up to rehearsal last night and we couldn’t get hold of you.”

 

Shit. Right. He hasn’t even checked his phone since he got home yesterday. Hasn’t slept since the night before last. Hasn’t eaten since lunch yesterday and can’t seem to make himself eat now.

 

Adam opens his mouth, with no idea what’s going to come out of it.

 

“Takashi was sick,” he says. It sounds like someone else’s voice in his ears. Like a recording that just happens to be coming out of his mouth.

 

“Ooh.” Curtis winces a little. “Did he catch that sinus crud that’s going around, or--”

 

And suddenly Adam needs to just… _get_ _out of the chow hall._

 

He needs to get away from all these people, it’s too crowded in here and too noisy and the lights are too bright and the smell of the food is overpowering and everything is too much of everything. He feels like he’s choking even though he hasn’t eaten anything to choke _on_ , feels like something cold and slimy is squirming around in his chest, closing around his heart, squeezing his lungs.

 

 _Fuck,_ he thinks, _no, please, not here, not now, not in front of Curtis!_

 

He doesn’t have his pills with him and doesn’t think he’d be able to keep one down if he did. He breaks out in a cold sweat and shoves back from the table. He hears, as if from another room, as if through a thick blanket and earplugs, Curtis saying “oh _shit.”_ And Curtis doesn’t say that. He hardly ever says so much as “hell,” he doesn’t have a problem with Adam’s deep and abiding love for the fuck word, he actually finds it kind of endearing, but _Curtis doesn’t swear._ And he just did.

 

Adam starts to get up and feels his knees threaten to buckle until two big, strong hands grab him by the shoulders and double-time him towards the nearest men’s room. Curtis herds Adam towards a stall and takes his glasses off him, and Adam leans over the toilet and squeezes his eyes shut and braces for the inevitable.

 

The inevitable doesn’t happen. Adam coughs a couple of times to try and trip his gag reflex because if he’s going to vomit he’d rather just do it and get it over with, but it still doesn’t happen. He stays where he is for a while just to make absolutely sure it’s not going to happen.

 

When he’s absolutely sure it’s not going to happen he straightens up and leans his back against the cool metal stall wall until that cold slimy thing in his chest retreats back to wherever it came from and his stomach settles down. He comes out of the stall, makes his way to the sink, and splashes cold water on his face.

 

“Do I need to take you to Medical?” Curtis asks.

 

Adam shakes his head and holds out his hand for his glasses. “I just… I need some air.”

 

Once his legs start working right and he feels like he can breathe more or less normally again, Adam lets Curtis lead him to a bench outside and he sits down heavily, with his head in his hands. “I’m… I’m really sorry,” he says as Curtis sits next to him and lays a hand on his back. “You didn’t need to see that.”

 

“No, God, don’t apologize for--Adam, what the _hell?”_ Curtis’ tone is gentle, but there’s fear behind it. “What _was_ that!?”

 

“That was a panic attack,” Adam says.

 

“Oh my God.” Curtis rubs Adam’s back a little. “I didn’t know you had those.”

 

“I didn’t either,” Adam says. Curtis’ hand is warm on his back, and it’s helping. “Until a couple months ago.”

 

“Wait, this is a new thing? You never had them before?” Curtis’ hand stills on his back. “You should probably get it checked out, then. See what’s causing them.”

 

Adam is quiet for a while. “Oh, I know what’s causing them,” he says.

 

He shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath.

 

And then he tells Curtis everything.

 

_Everything._

 

“I’m being completely unreasonable,” Adam finally says when he’s finished. “Right? I just need to-to calm down and get off his ass. I’m overreacting. Tell me I’m overreacting.”

 

Curtis just stares at him, utterly horrified.

 

 _“...no!?”_ he finally says. “You’re--oh my God, Adam. _”_ Curtis blows out a breath and runs a hand through his hair. “No, you’re _not_ overreacting!” Adam feels something deep inside him sort of unwind a little. He’s not being unreasonable. He’s not overreacting. Curtis had a crush on Takashi, still has that big soft spot in his big soft heart for Takashi and… _he actually agrees with Adam._ “Is there anything I can do?”

 

Adam just shakes his head. “Not unless you can either cure him or convince him he needs to stop flying.”

 

Curtis nods and doesn’t say anything for a while.

 

“Listen,” he finally says, “I understand why you didn’t want to tell me about this but holy _shit!_ Don’t try to do this by yourself! You’re my friend. Talk to me, okay? If you’re not going to go to a therapist then at least _talk to me._ There might not be much I can actually do but I can _listen!”_

 

“Curtis…” God, this man is too sweet for his own good (and Adam wonders yet again: _why is he still single?)_. “God, I didn’t even want to tell you this, I know you still--I don’t like dumping this on you.”

 

“You need to dump it on _someone_ and I’m volunteering.” Curtis rubs Adam’s back again, slow and gentle. “I just--I hate to see you hurting like this.”

 

Later, much later, _months_ later, Adam will remember that and wonder why he didn’t catch on right then.

 

* * *

 

The higher-ups start talking about a mission to one of Pluto’s moons. Pluto. Way the fuck out there. A year-long mission, possibly longer, to some little ball of rock called Kerberos. It’d be a risky mission for a healthy crew. But it’s also an important one. Whoever goes on it is probably going to have their name in a lot of history books someday.

 

So of course, Takashi _jumps on it._

 

He comes home and tells Adam. He’s sure he’s going to get it, and it’s hard to look at him bouncing off the walls like a schoolboy, hard to listen to him bubbling over with excitement and think about how sick he is and what a year or more in space leaves him when he gets back. _If_ he gets back.

 

But Adam isn’t worried. He knows they won’t actually send him. They know what kind of condition he’s in, they couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to send a dying man on a year-plus mission. But he knows Takashi wants it, and he wants to at least try to be supportive for now because when Takashi gets the news that he’s not going, it’s going to break his heart. So he doesn’t argue, he doesn’t complain, he doesn’t try to talk Takashi out of it. _Let him have this,_ Adam thinks, _what’s the harm in just letting him be excited for now?_

 

So he gives Takashi a big hug and tells him that’s great, and that just gets him even _more_ excited. Takashi pulls him down and kisses the life out of him, and--

 

God, how long has it been since--

 

Between the headaches and the doctor appointments and the panic attacks and the arguments and the side effects and the fucking _missions_ and the recovery time… how long has it been?

 

Too long. _Way too long._

 

Adam needs this. They both do. So he lets Takashi pick him up and carry him to the bedroom, lets Takashi strip him and returns the favor, lets Takashi lay him down on the bed and kneel astride his hips.

 

It’s hard to think about much of anything while Takashi is riding him, making all those noises Adam loves so much, but Adam still finds it a little challenging to not think about how disappointed Takashi is going to be when they give this mission to someone else.

 

* * *

 

Takashi comes home a couple days later even more excited.

 

They’re going to send him.

 

They’re actually going to send him.

 

_What the absolute fuck are they thinking!?_

 

Adam still wants to try and put forth the appearance of being supportive but it’s so much harder this time, and Takashi knows his heart isn’t in it.

 

After he’s sure Takashi is asleep Adam takes one of his pills and still has to go down to the basement and lock himself in his studio because it’s soundproofed well enough that Takashi won’t hear him screaming.

 

* * *

 

Adam texts Curtis the next morning: _they’re actually sending him on this fucking mission. IDK what to do. Can’t take it anymore. Help._

 

He knows it’ll be a few hours before Curtis gets a break, but just yelling into the digital void takes a little of the edge off, backs him away from the rising tide of panic a little.

 

He manages to get through his morning classes, and he’s thinking about skipping lunch and just taking a power nap in his office instead until his phone buzzes.

 

It’s from Curtis. _WTF!? Meet me for lunch?_

 

Yeah, okay.

 

Curtis is waiting outside the chow hall when he gets there, and they go through the line and get their food and find a table in silence. They sit down, and Adam just shakes his head.

 

“I don’t know what to do,” he finally says, out loud this time. “I love him. I love him more than _anything_ but--he won’t stop. He knows how long he’s got, this fucking mission is going to run his clock down to damn near nothing, he knows what this is doing to me and he still won’t stop and--Curtis, _what the fuck do I do?_ ”

 

Curtis nibbles on a french fry while he thinks about it. “I don’t know,” he says. “I know you love him. I know he loves you. You’re my friends. And I don’t like seeing _either_ of you hurting.” He’s quiet for a while, like he’s trying to think of the best way to take some of the bitterness out of the pill he’s about to administer. “I think… I know you want to take care of him but... you need to take care of yourself too, y’know?”

 

“I’m scared,” Adam says. “I’ve never been so fucking _scared_ in my whole life. I’m scared for him, I’m scared for _me,_ I’m scared for Commander Holt and his kid, God, what’s going to happen to them if--”

 

“I know,” Curtis says. “I am too. But… look, I don’t love Sanda--” Adam can’t help snorting out a laugh at that because _who the fuck does--_ “but she’s not stupid. If he’s really not healthy enough to fly this mission, she’ll pull him off.”

 

Yeah. That much is true, and knowing that gives Adam a little bit of comfort. Takashi wouldn’t be happy about it, but… maybe that’s what has to happen to make him understand that it’s time for him to stop doing this to himself.

 

* * *

 

And sure enough, a few days later Takashi comes home for lunch in a foul mood because he got into a pissing contest with Sanda over the Kerberos mission. Apparently she took a closer look at his more recent medical records and decided to give it to another pilot, and Adam has to keep his back to Takashi and concentrate on his coffee to keep him from seeing the relief in his face.

 

But that relief is short-lived. Commander Holt threatened to quit the mission if anyone else flew it, with all due respect sir _fuck you for that,_ and Adam knows from the start that this conversation is going to be a three-ring shitshow.

 

Adam has butted heads with Sanda over assorted differences of opinion in the past but... stopped clock, twice a day, and all that. So… he makes the mistake of agreeing with her.

 

This goes over about as well as he expects it to.

 

He knows where Takashi gets the idea that nothing he ever accomplishes will _ever_ be enough, that he’ll always have something to prove, that terminal illness is not an excuse, that he’s not what he was expected to be so he has to be _everything else_ instead. He knows _exactly_ who put that idea in Takashi’s head, and as unfathomable as it seems to Adam given the supportive family _he_ grew up in, he understands that this kind of shit is difficult at best to uproot.

 

But this time, it’s going to kill him. It is going to literally fucking _kill him._

 

Adam can’t stand it anymore. He snaps. He slams his coffee down on the counter and says a lot of things he knows he’s going to regret later but goddammit, the gentle approach isn’t getting through Takashi’s skull, if this is what it takes to make him sit down and really _think_ about his life choices, then this is what it fucking takes.

 

“I know I can’t stop you,” Adam says, “but if you decide to go, don’t expect me to be here when you get back.”

 

“Adam--”

 

“I’ve got a class to teach.“ He leaves without waiting for a response.

 

* * *

 

Adam feels his phone buzz halfway through that class, and once it’s over he pulls his phone out and checks it. There’s a text from Takashi.

 

_I’m going._

 

He stares at it for ten solid minutes. Starts a response. Deletes it and starts another. Starts a third. A fourth.

 

He ends up leaving the love of his goddamn life on read.

 

* * *

 

Adam sleeps on the couch that night. And the next.

 

They hardly say two words to each other for the rest of the week.

 

“I told you I didn’t want you to be tied down taking care of me,” Takashi finally says to him while he’s grading papers. “I _asked_ you if you wanted to break it off.”

 

“And I told you I didn’t have a problem with taking care of you, I had a problem with watching you _self-destruct,”_ Adam says. It’s harsh but he’s too fucking tired to sugar-coat it. “I love you so much and I am fucking _terrified_ right now, do you understand that? If you go on that mission, the _best case scenario_ is that you come back in a year and you have maybe a few months of a relatively normal life left. The worst case is, _you die out there and take two people with you._ I can’t take this anymore, please just think for one fucking second about what you’re doing!”

 

“I know what I’m doing. I’m doing what I need to do. And I know it’s hurting you and I’m sorry,” Takashi says softly. Adam tries like hell to keep his reaction off his face. “I wish I had more time. I still--I still want to marry you, but-- _I have to do this._ ”

 

What is he supposed to say to that?

 

“No you don’t, _”_ Adam finally says. “Why can’t you understand that? You _don’t._ You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone, not yourself, not your parents, not Keith, and sure as hell not _me!_ Just--just marry me. Marry me and spend the time you have left with me. Please. If you love me, please just stay with me, _I’m begging you.”_

 

“Okay.” Takashi comes up behind Adam and lays warm hands on his shoulders, trying to gently knead the tension out of them. “I will.”

 

This is too easy. It can’t be this easy. But it sounds like he’s serious, and Adam feels his shoulders start to relax a little under Takashi’s hands. “You really mean that?”

 

“I really mean that,” Takashi says, and he squeezes Adam’s shoulders again. “After I get back I’ll resign. Then I’m all yours.”

 

After he gets _back_ \--

 

The pencil in Adam’s hand snaps in half.

 

Takashi has made his decision and there’s no talking him out of it.

 

So now Adam has to make one.

 

He hates it. He hates the thought of what he’s about to do. But if Takashi is still so dead set on flying this mission knowing it might kill him, knowing how little time he’s going to have when (or if) he gets back, there isn’t really any other option at this point, is there?

 

He ducks out from under Takashi’s hands, sweeps the papers he’s grading into his messenger bag and throws it onto the couch, and stalks off to the bedroom. He hears Takashi follow him, he can feel Takashi’s eyes on him while he’s packing up his uniforms and laptop and enough socks and underwear and gym clothes and civvies to get him through a week if he’s careful.

 

“I’m not doing this to hurt you,” Takashi says. “It’s something I have to do for _me._ I wish you could understand that.”

 

“Then I hope _you_ understand that I have to do _this_ for _me.”_ Adam doesn’t look at Takashi. His voice cracks anyway. “I’ll come pack the rest of it up tomorrow.” He reaches for his messenger bag and pauses there for a moment. “I love you. I’ll always love you and I hope you come back safe. But I can’t watch you kill yourself in slow motion anymore.” And he slings his bag over his shoulder, grabs his messenger bag off the couch, and leaves.

 

* * *

 

Adam gets a hotel room for the night. Tomorrow he’ll need to go to Admin and see about getting back into the officers’ dorm. He’ll probably need to get a storage unit for his studio crap, he won’t be able to set it up in a dorm room. Not because it’s not allowed, just because there will be literally no place in that room it’ll fit and definitely nothing he can soundproof. Maybe he’ll just stash it in his classroom storage unit. If Iverson gives him any shit about keeping personal items in his classroom storage, he could argue that he _is_ the accompanist for the chorus and it’s technically stuff he might conceivably use in that capacity. And furthermore, he knows for a stone cold fucking _fact_ Iverson won’t escalate it because he keeps at least one bottle of expensive bourbon in his.

 

He stretches out on the bed, turns the TV to something that requires no brainpower and provides some kind of soothing background noise, and shuts his eyes.

 

His phone buzzes a few times. He ignores the first one. Then he scowls at his phone and wakes it up just so he can tell it to shut up.

 

He’s missed three texts from Takashi. He doesn’t read them.

 

But he thinks about it for a while… and sends Curtis a text.

 

_I left him._

 

And there it is. He’s called it by name.

 

“I left him,” he says, this time out loud. The words taste like he’s bitten into something that’s just starting to go rotten. He feels cold and numb and a little sick. He wants to cry and can’t. He doesn’t have a right to anyway. He doesn’t get to cry about anything, ever again.

 

Because Takashi is dying, and Adam fucking _left him._

 

His phone buzzes, and he almost throws it across the room until he sees the text.

 

It’s a reply from Curtis: _where are you?_

 

* * *

 

Curtis shows up twenty minutes later with a bag of snacks and drinks.

 

“He called me on the way over here,” Curtis says, setting the bag down on the dresser and pulling out a couple of drinks. “He says he tried to text you but you didn’t answer. Did you…”

 

Adam accepts a soda and shakes his head _no._ “I mean. I _got_ them but… I can’t.”

 

Curtis frowns gently and holds out a hand. “Gimme your phone?”

 

After a bit of hesitation, Adam unlocks it and hands it over. Curtis taps a few things and sighs. “Yeah, that sounds about right.” He shakes his head. “He just wanted you to let him know if you couldn’t find somewhere to stay, he still loves you, and he understands why you left.” He offers Adam his phone back.

 

Adam doesn’t think Takashi really understands, but it’s nice of him to say he does, at least. He takes the phone and sends Takashi one text: _Got a hotel tonight. Going back to dorm tomorrow._

 

After some thought he sends another: _call me if you get a headache or need to go to the doc or w/e. I’ll still help if you need it._

 

Takashi sends back a single _OK_ and that’s it. That’s the end of that conversation. But having made that offer, Adam feels slightly less like an absolute fucking heartless monster. Slightly.

 

He and Curtis watch TV and graze in silence for a while--Curtis brought chips and a bag of black licorice for Adam, and a shitload of candy for himself. The silence between them is heavy, but not in an awkward way, strangely enough. Curtis is just ... _there._ He’s just a big soft comforting presence on the other side of the room, keeping Adam from being alone in there with nothing to do but replay every horrible thing he said to Takashi over and over in his head.

 

“Are you going to be up for rehearsal tomorrow?” Curtis asks him at some point and… shit. Right.

 

“Eeh.” Adam shakes his head. “No promises.”

 

“Okay.” Curtis takes out his phone and shoots a text to someone--probably the director to let her know they’ll need the backup accompanist. “Do you need help with your stuff, or…?”

 

Well… yeah, Adam probably could use a couple extra hands, but would it be a good idea to have him at the house right now? Sure, Curtis and Takashi were friends too but… it might be awkward. Adam sure as hell doesn’t want to risk dropping Curtis right into the middle of a screaming match.

 

“I… I think I’ve got it,” Adam finally says. “I’ll call you if I need help, though.”

 

They sit there half-watching the TV and nibbling on junk food a while longer.

 

“Do you want me to talk to him?” Curtis asks, out of nowhere.

 

Adam actually considers it for a moment. Curtis is a third party looking in from outside, Takashi knows Curtis had a thing for him which might normally predispose him to take Takashi’s side. But if he didn’t… if he agreed with Adam instead, Takashi might even actually listen to him, because he knows about that big soft spot in Curtis’ big soft heart and as stubborn as Takashi is he’s not _heartless,_ Takashi wouldn’t want to hurt Curtis’ feelings, maybe it’s worth a try?

 

Or it could backfire horribly, and leave everyone involved pissed off and/or heartbroken.

 

“If you decide to do that,” Adam finally says, “you are _on your own._ Don't report back to me, don't try to--to workshop what you're going to say with me. If he even thinks I put you up to it he'll just shut the whole conversation down.”

 

“I know. But he's my friend too.” Curtis scoots his chair a little closer to the bed and puts his feet up on the corner. “I’m worried about him too. He’s gotta know that.”

 

* * *

 

Adam rents a small van and packs his stuff up the next morning. Takashi is at work, so that’s one awkward interaction he doesn’t have to have today.

 

He manages to stash his studio stuff plus two guitars and one keyboard and a couple boxes of other stuff in his classroom storage without anyone whose opinion matters giving him shit about it.

 

They give him a dorm room at the end of the hall so he only potentially has to deal with a loud neighbor on one side. Fortunately, he gets a quiet one.

 

Oh, and Curtis lives at the other end of the same hall. Which is kind of a relief, for reasons Adam can’t quite pin down to anything more specific than “friend nearby.”

 

He takes the van back, picks his car back up, drives back to the dorm to unpack his shit. It’s not much--his clothes, his work stuff, his laptop, his books, his little stereo, one of his keyboards, his acoustic guitar. It occurs to him that he could have grabbed the crock pot and maybe the panini press. Takashi can’t cook, what the hell is _he_ going to do with them?

 

Fuck it, he can have them because just the thought of setting foot in that house again is tying knots in Adam’s stomach.

 

He shoots Curtis a text to let him know what room he ended up in.

 

 _I know you said not to report back to you,_ Curtis texts back and ah, shit… _I guess he listened to me and he feels rly bad that it’s hurting you but... he’s still rly determined to do this._

 

 _I figured,_ Adam replies.

 

There’s a long pause, and Adam figures Curtis just went back to work or whatever.

 

 _What about Keith? Maybe ask_ him _to try?_

 

Adam winces at that. _Maybe? Idk though. He likes me ok but he worships the ground Takashi walks on._

 

Still, it’s worth a shot.

 

* * *

 

Adam pulls Keith aside after class the next day to ask him to maybe say something to Takashi, but it’s too late--he’s already figured out something’s wrong with Takashi, already gotten the edited-for-TV and likely heavily sugar-coated version from him, and worst of all--he’s already heard Adam moved out.

 

“Why do you care?” Keith snaps at him. “He’s not _your_ problem anymore.”

 

By the time Adam finds his voice again, Keith is already gone. And then, of course, Adam remembers all those trust issues he has around… well… around the idea of his family leaving him.

 

_Fuck._

 

* * *

 

Adam just sort of gets by on autopilot for the next few weeks. Get up, shower, breakfast, work, lunch, work, gym, dinner, home, sleep, repeat, replace gym with rehearsal on Wednesdays.

 

Takashi doesn’t call him for a ride to the doctor, doesn’t ask him for help with anything. And, well… Sanda still hasn’t pulled him off the Kerberos mission, so apparently they’ve hit on some combination of meds that’ll keep this shit under control well enough for him to fly the damn thing.

 

He texts Keith a couple of times to ask how he’s doing or if he needs anything. Keith doesn’t reply, and Adam guesses he can’t really blame him.

 

* * *

 

They actually cancel classes on launch day. This mission is a pretty big deal, after all. So all the cadets and most of the instructors watch the launch. Adam doesn’t. He stays in his office and grades papers and works on new sim missions.

 

He goes straight home that afternoon and plops down on the couch with the keyboard on his lap and goes over a few of the pieces for the winter concert. Most of it is stuff he’s played before. And it’s still a couple months off, it’s not like he needs to practice super hard on any of it right now.

 

But it’s something to do to keep his brain busy, because the last fucking thing he needs right now is to sit alone in his room and think about what Takashi is doing out there.

 

There’s a knock on his door while he’s dicking around with that new arrangement of “Winter Wonderland” the senior cadets will be doing. It’s Curtis. And he has a bag from the Italian restaurant they both like.

 

“Do I even need to ask if you’ve had dinner yet?” Curtis asks him when he opens the door, and Adam rolls his eyes a little because it’s only what, seven in the evening? Half-past?

 

He glances at his watch and… oh. Shit.

 

Curtis doesn’t lecture him, he just walks in and goes into the bag and hands Adam a box of something that’s hot and smells good. He takes out a smaller box for himself and pops it open--it’s a piece of cheesecake drowned in chocolate and caramel and nuts, and Adam can’t help but laugh a little at that.

 

“What?” Curtis says, settling in on Adam’s couch with his cheesecake. “I already had dinner, so I got dessert.”

 

Adam digs around in the bag for a packet of plasticware and sits on the other end of the couch. His box contains pasta with grilled chicken and broccoli in alfredo sauce and some garlic bread, and he can practically feel his stomach making grabby-hands at it. “Thanks. Shit, I didn’t even notice I was hungry.”

 

“Don’t mention it. I… I kinda don’t blame you for avoiding the chow hall right now. The launch is all everyone’s talking about.” He pauses with a forkful of cheesecake halfway to his mouth. “...and now _I’m_ talking about it. Sorry. Won’t mention it again.”

 

Adam considers that for a minute. “Have you heard anything?” he finally asks, and Curtis laughs a little.

 

“Hello? Communications officer? I hear _everything.”_ He scrapes some wayward topping back onto his cheesecake and takes another bite. “Nothing out of the ordinary, status reports on the hour every hour, everything’s working as advertised.” Curtis sits there staring at his cheesecake for a bit, then he puts the box down. “If anything goes wrong I’ll be the first to hear about it,” he says.

 

Adam nods and concentrates on his dinner. On the one hand, he does feel a little better knowing Curtis is monitoring all that stuff eight hours a day. On the other, he feels a little worse knowing that Curtis still has that big soft spot in his big soft heart for Takashi and if something does go horribly wrong while Curtis is on duty, he’s going to hear it happen in real time.

 

But still… Adam definitely appreciates the sentiment. “Thanks.”

 

Curtis pats Adam on the shoulder and picks his cheesecake back up. “Oh, come _on,”_ he says, eyeing the pile of sheet music on the end table, “Rutter _again!?_ Tell me this is for the senior cadets.”

 

“Nope, sorry. And don’t cry to _me.”_ Adam reaches over and ever so gently pokes Curtis in the arm with his plastic fork. “I don’t pick it, I just play it.”

 

* * *

 

It gets easier after the first few months.

 

Adam is still kind of running on autopilot, but at least he's starting to adjust to single life again. He's not looking, not yet. He's nowhere near ready to deal with dating again. He's still not quite used to a twin bed, or waking up alone, or not smelling the ghost of Takashi’s aftershave on the pillow. He can’t even imagine anyone else’s on it.

 

But life is getting easier. He's sleeping through the night and he hasn't had a panic attack since before the launch. He even goes out with his friends once in a while.

 

Well… mostly he goes out with Curtis, and pretty much only when Curtis knocks on his door and threatens to physically drag him to a movie or something because he hasn’t left his room other than to go to work or rehearsal in a couple weeks, but it's a start.

 

Keith still isn't really talking to him, but at least he's starting to come around a little. Probably because with Takashi off in space, Adam is the only family he has left on Earth. At least he knows Adam isn't going to completely disappear on him. At least now when Adam texts him, he answers. It might just be _yeah_ or _ok_ or something, but it's not silence.

 

Adam doesn't really want to hear what the Kerberos crew is up to, and Curtis respects that. He seems to be the only person who does. He says he’ll let Adam know if anything comes up and other than that, he won't bring it up.

 

And he doesn't. He makes a point of hanging out in Adam’s room or dragging Adam to his to go over the music for the spring concert or watch movies or talk about literally fucking anything but the fucking Kerberos mission.

 

...come to think of it, Adam has been spending a _lot_ of time with Curtis lately.

 

Enough that he’s starting to wonder if maybe he shouldn’t be.

 

On the one hand… well, Adam might not be ready to jump back into the dating pool but he _is_ single and so is Curtis and they can hang out with whoever they damn well please. Whose business is it if two good single friends spend a lot of time together?

 

On the other… how sure is he that Curtis _is_ just a friend anymore?

 

He’s been telling himself he’s not ready to start dating again. He’s been telling himself he’s not looking. He’s starting to wonder if maybe there’s a reason why he’s not looking...

 

 _No._ Nope. Not going there. Curtis is a friend. A very close friend these days, but a friend and he’s going to stay that way. Dammit, he’s a great guy and he doesn’t deserve to be a fucking rebound and Adam is _not_ going to do that to him, end of discussion.

 

But one night they’re watching TV on Adam’s couch and he gets the weirdest impulse to just… lean over and rest his head on Curtis’ shoulder.

 

He almost hopes Curtis protests, scoots out from under him, laughs it off, _anything._

 

But he doesn’t. He makes a soft, surprised little noise… and then he leans his head against Adam’s.

 

It’s just heads on shoulders.

 

It’s… it’s not like they’re making out or anything, right?

 

They’re just really good friends and there’s nothing weird about really good friends sharing a little bit of desperately-needed physical affection (because _when_ was the last time Adam had so much as a hug, and _how_ long has Curtis been single?).

 

Adam keeps telling himself that.

 

* * *

 

It happens a few more times. And then it starts happening… well, _every_ time they go out to a movie or sit on the couch watching TV. But that’s all that happens. Just heads on shoulders. Just friends sharing a little perfectly platonic physical affection. That’s all.

 

Adam is still not ready to think about actually dating anyone. On some level, he still hopes Takashi comes back and comes to his fucking senses and retires and still has enough time left for them to have some kind of relatively normal life together for at least a little while.

 

He knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t help clinging to that hope.

 

He clings to it right up until that afternoon he’s in the sim bay running some junior cadets through a Baby's First Missions course and he sees Curtis come in.

 

He's not just casually walking in, either. There’s purpose in the way he’s walking, and he’s breathing hard like he ran all the way over. And right away Adam knows something is up, because Curtis is supposed to be on duty right now.

 

Adam opens his mouth to ask what he's doing there, but the look on Curtis’ face stops him cold. Not just the expression--he looks gray around the eyes. Haunted. Like he’s just seen something so horrible he doesn’t even know where to start processing it.

 

“Lieutenant Wolf?” he says, all business--why is he doing this, why is he trying to give the impression that he's here on official business, “I need to talk to you in private.”

 

He’s never acted like this, not with Adam. _Why is he acting like this!?_

 

But Adam excuses himself and follows Curtis out into the hall anyway. “What?” he says, even though later he'll think back on it and realize he already knew. “Curtis, what’s wrong?”

 

Curtis doesn't say anything for a while.

 

“We--” he starts, and he chokes on whatever he meant to follow that with. “They’re going to make an announcement in a little while but I-I didn’t want you to hear it like that--Adam, I-I’m sorry, _I’m so sorry--”_

 

And then it all clicks.

 

Adam doesn’t remember much of what happened after that.

 

He remembers feeling the floor drop out from under him.

 

He remembers strong hands catching him, easing him down as his legs gave out.

 

He remembers being wrapped in something woodsy and warm.

 

He thinks he remembers Curtis telling him to watch his head, and something about the seatbelt.

 

The next thing he remembers is waking up in his own room, in his own bed, still in uniform other than his boots. His glasses are on the nightstand next to an almost-empty glass of water and the pills he hasn’t needed in months--Curtis must have convinced him to take one. His eyes are burning like he was crying, and his throat feels raw like he was screaming. He doesn’t remember that either.

 

He knows, from the second he wakes up, that it was real. He’s not waking up from a bad dream.

 

They lost contact with the Kerberos crew.

 

Takashi is gone.

 

The love of Adam’s life is dead.

 

* * *

 

When Adam finally does drag himself out of bed long enough to go to the bathroom and shuck off his uniform and hang it up he finds a note on the nightstand next to his glasses.

 

_Had to go back to work. Back soon as I can get free._

 

_Please don't watch the news. Horrible takes EVERYWHERE._

 

_I’m so sorry._

 

_-C_

 

Adam has to read it three times before he understands it.

 

 _Shit._ God, poor Curtis… he must be devastated right now, and he had to go back to work…

 

Adam finishes up in the bathroom and falls back into bed. It’s too quiet but he can’t quite work up the energy to do anything about it. All he can do is replay every terrible thing he ever said to Takashi, every time they argued, every time Takashi was in the mood and he wasn’t, those last couple of nights he spent on the couch, the night he shook Takashi’s hands off his shoulders and left…

 

God, why the fuck did he leave, why couldn’t he have just stuck it out a little longer, waited until after the launch, _let Takashi have a couple more weeks--_

 

The knock is so soft he barely hears it. He drags himself out of bed, throws on a T-shirt and shorts, and opens the door.

 

Curtis looks like hell.

 

His eyes are red, from exhaustion or tears or both. That gray around his eyes has spread to the rest of his face. He hasn’t changed out of his uniform. He’s a little unsteady on his feet, and when Adam lays a hand on his back and draws him into the room he just sort of collapses against Adam’s shoulder.

 

Adam is already feeling low and thinking of that big soft spot in Curtis’ big soft heart, thinking about Curtis hearing that happen and then coming to personally tell him and bringing him home and putting him in bed and then _going back to work_ makes him want to curl up in a ball and roll under the couch and stay there forever.

 

He can’t undo what he did to Takashi.

 

But dammit, he can be the friend Curtis needs right now.

 

Adam shuts the door and wraps his arms around Curtis’ waist. He wants to say something, _anything,_ but nothing comes out.

 

Curtis just shakes his head and buries his face in Adam’s shoulder.

 

“Come on,” Adam whispers, gently tugging Curtis toward the couch. “Come sit down.”

 

“I-I don’t know what happened.” Curtis sinks onto the couch, and Adam sits next to him, one arm still tight around his waist. “They were going out to collect some samples and they just--they just--I kept trying to reach them but--”

 

His voice breaks, and so does Adam’s heart. “God, Curtis--”

 

And that’s all either of them can say. They cling to one another, sharing grief and comfort well into the night.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam can’t say it. He can’t even think it, not in so many words. He’s been thinking around it for a while now, and most of what he’s been thinking about it is no. No, he’s not going to do this to Curtis. No, he’s not going to treat his best friend like a fucking consolation prize. No, he’s not going to do this, he loves Curtis too much--
> 
> And there it is. He’s called it by name.
> 
> He loves Curtis.
> 
> All the more reason to not fucking do this to him.

Classes are cancelled for the rest of the week. And thank fucking God for that, because Adam is a mess. But at least he has a few days off to recover.

 

Meanwhile, Curtis isn’t an instructor, he works in mission control, and he doesn’t get time off for this--and he’s hurting too. After all, he still had that big soft spot in his big soft heart for Takashi and they lost the Kerberos crew on his shift, and Adam suspects that on some level he blames himself for not being able to restore communication with them. Which… no, if they’re--if they’re dead, there’s nothing the crew on Earth can do to restore that line of communication, and logically Curtis knows that but he still can’t help feeling like he’s failed somehow.

 

So the only thing keeping Adam together right now is sheer determination to be there for his best friend.

 

They’re both avoiding the chow hall because once again, the Kerberos mission is all anyone can talk about, and neither of them wants to hear it. So Adam brings Curtis takeout every night and makes sure not to forget the dessert. He turns the TV to anything but the news and makes sure it stays there. He does Curtis’ laundry--look, he’s off all week, Curtis isn’t, the man still needs clean civvies and socks and underwear, right? Besides, it’s something to do other than sit in his room alone with his memories. He even drags himself out of bed at 05fucking00 to go to the gym with Curtis and makes sure they pick treadmills that are in front of TVs that aren’t tuned to the news channels.

 

By the time the weekend rolls around, Curtis has perked up a little. Of course he’s still grieving, but at least he’s not blaming himself.

 

Adam can’t quite say the same for himself yet.

 

* * *

 

Takashi had a will. Apparently, he had some changes made to it, fairly recently. Adam remembers the date--it was the day he had that panic attack in the chow hall..

 

The house was a rental, so that wasn’t a concern. Just the stuff in it and his bank account. He left all the stuff to Adam except his hoverbike and some other stuff--that went to Keith, and it’s going into a storage unit for now because he’s got nowhere to keep it until he graduates and moves out of the cadet dorm. He left half the money to each of them.

 

The change he made was leaving Adam the key and passcode to a safe deposit box at the bank. Adam has to take Keith down there to set up an account anyway, so he opens it up and finds an envelope labeled _contingency plan_ in Takashi’s neat handwriting.

 

Inside the envelope is a very short letter.

 

_I hope it was quick and you weren’t tied down to me too long._

_I want you to move on. Find someone who’ll take care of_ _you._

_I love you. I always will._

 

_“Fuck you,_ Takashi,” Adam whispers. Then he neatly folds the letter up, puts it back in the envelope, and tucks it into his pocket.

 

* * *

 

There’s a memorial ceremony a few weeks later. There’s talk of having the chorus sing a couple pieces but for some reason or another it doesn’t pan out and thank God for that, too. It’s going to be hard enough just sitting out there listening to the eulogies, Adam is certain they’d have to have the backup accompanist on this because he’d probably have a total breakdown right there at the piano and Curtis would probably have to just lip-sync.

 

Iverson actually asks Adam a few days beforehand if he wants to say anything  and… why? What the fuck could he say? _Takashi Shirogane was the love of my life and I left him because he decided he’d rather die in space than live with me, but he was--_ and _goddammit,_ even though he’s actually been gone for more than a year it’s hard to think of him in the past tense.

 

He knows it’s horrible of him but he actually considers not going at all.

 

But Curtis wants to go, so… Adam goes.

 

Commander Holt’s wife and daughter are there. And other assorted friends and family. He doesn’t see Takashi’s parents, and that’s probably for the best. Adam knows they know, and hopes they know this is partly _their_ fucking fault, and if he’d seen them he would have made _very_ sure to point that out to them to their faces. But they’re not even there.

 

He doesn’t see Keith, either.

 

* * *

 

After it’s over Adam sends Keith a text: _didn’t see you at the ceremony._

 

He actually gets a reply that’s more than one word this time. But he kind of wishes Keith had just left him on read when he sees it.

 

_Why would I go to a memorial ceremony for someone who’s not dead?_

 

Oh, fuck.

 

* * *

 

After a minor freakout and a long talk with Curtis and maybe a couple of beers Adam calms down a little. Denial is the first stage of the grieving process, of course Keith doesn’t believe Takashi is dead. Still being in the first stage on the day of a memorial ceremony, when they don’t even have a body to bury? Not unreasonable for someone who worshipped the ground Takashi walked on.

 

He just needs to work through it.

 

Adam sends Keith a text: _I know this sucks and I’m sorry. I’m not going to bail on you. Call me, text me, whatever, I don’t care what time it is._

 

Keith leaves him on read.

 

He just needs to work through it, is all. And Adam left the door open. That’s all he can do.

 

* * *

 

_PIlot error._

 

That phrase is getting thrown around a lot lately, mostly by Sanda and her minions, but now it’s starting to filter down into the lower ranks. And Adam and Keith have one new thing to bond over now: that phrase sends _both_ of them into a rage.

 

And even Curtis--sweet Curtis who doesn’t swear, gentle Curtis who _doesn’t get mad--_ Curtis is flipping through channels and accidentally hits the news at the wrong moment one night, just as one of Sanda’s spokescreatures is uttering that very phrase, and he yells “Oh, _fuck you!”_ and throws half a brownie at Adam’s TV. It’s not a gentle toss, either--he grits his teeth and winds up and _fastballs_ that brownie at the TV. There’s an audible _splat_ and the TV wobbles and there’s an explosion of crumbs and a glob of brownie stuck to the screen.

 

Adam just sits there, wide-eyed, staring at that glob clinging to his TV with something like awe. Honestly, he’s… he’s actually kind of proud of Curtis for that.

 

But of course this is Curtis, and he apologizes as soon as the remains of the brownie hit the floor and scurries off to fetch cleaning supplies. But still--if it makes _Curtis_ mad enough to say the fuck word out loud, it’s definitely bullshit. And Curtis knows better than anyone that it’s bullshit because he was _there,_ he heard what happened, and there was no way that was _pilot error._

 

Adam has no idea what it could have been if they were just out collecting samples, but… it definitely wasn’t fucking _pilot error._

 

One of the cadets says it during the one class Adam has Keith in. Adam feels his jaw clench and his eye twitch, but he doesn’t say anything. He can’t--he can’t contradict the official statement in front of a classroom full of cadets, and besides that, what Curtis told him about them being out collecting samples is classified information and _he_ might have that clearance, but the cadets don’t yet.

 

But he catches Keith’s eye right away and he thinks maybe Keith noticed. He’s giving Adam a weird look, like… like he’s surprised. Adam shakes his head _no_ , just a tiny little motion but enough for Keith to pick up, and they spend a moment having an unspoken conversation that would probably contain multiple uses of the fuck word if they’d had it out loud.

 

Keith hangs back a little after class and rolls his eyes at Adam. _“Pilot error,”_ he snorts.

 

He actually cracks a little bit of a smile when Adam bares his teeth and snarls “Pilot error, my _entire_ ass” just loud enough for Keith to hear.

 

“So... you don’t believe it either,” Keith says. There’s something like relief in his voice. He picks up his stuff and heads on to his next class before Adam can ask exactly what it is Keith thinks he doesn’t believe, but somehow it leaves him feeling a little better.

 

When they pass each other in the hall later that afternoon, Adam decides to try something.

 

_“Pilot error,”_ he sneers in the most viciously mocking tone he can muster up, complete with eye roll. Keith just shakes his head, but as he passes Adam feels a gentle pat on his shoulder.  

 

Later that night Keith actually texts _him_ first. It’s just a quick _I miss him,_ and after Adam sends an _I know, me too_ back, the conversation ends. But it’s something. Keith actually started a conversation with _him,_ however short and monosyllabic a conversation. He’s peeking through the door. It’s a connection. It’s _progress._ It’s a petty, salty little thing to bond over but dammit, it’s _something._

 

Maybe he’ll be okay.

 

Maybe this is all going to be okay.

 

But their newfound connection hits a roadblock when they find out they have some differences of opinion on exactly _why_ “pilot error” is bullshit.

 

It pisses Adam off because he knows it’s nothing but Sanda covering her own ass. It makes it sound like Takashi was fucking _incompetent._ He was the best pilot the Garrison had, and would they have sent someone who didn’t know how to fly on a mission like that? And besides that--again, he is extra careful to not mention this to Keith because it’s classified info but they were out collecting samples or some shit when they lost contact. They weren’t even _on_ the damn ship. And there’s Sanda’s fucking spokesperson on TV, shifting the blame off her and onto Takashi. The only _error_ anyone made here was sending a man dying of a degenerative neuromuscular disorder off to fly a year-long mission to the outskirts of the goddamn solar system, and Sanda is too chickenshit to own up to it.

 

It pisses Keith off because he’s convinced that Takashi is alive out there somewhere and the Garrison is covering something up. After all, they weren’t even on the ship when they lost contact--and by the way, _how the fuck does Keith know that?_ Because Adam sure as hell didn’t tell him. How does he know everything Curtis knows when he’s not even supposed to be _near_ mission control, is he eavesdropping on communications somehow? Is he _recording_ this shit? Is he _trying_ to get expelled? Or _court-martialed!?_ And look, Adam gets it. Keith worships the ground Takashi walked on, and the absence of a body to bury is just going to make it harder to accept the fact that he’s dead. But as coping mechanisms go, a headfirst dive into conspiracy theory bullshit is probably one of the _least_ healthy.

 

And a couple of months after the memorial ceremony, that difference of opinion reaches a boiling point.

 

* * *

 

That tenuous connection has long since broken. Keith is leaving Adam on read again. His grades are slipping. His anger management issues are coming back. And he’s cutting class. Which he’s never done, not since he started at the academy. _Never._

 

And now Iverson is leaning on _Adam_ to straighten Keith’s ass up pronto.

 

He spots an opening during lunch one day. Keith is eating alone, because of course he is, so Adam plops down across from him with his own lunch.

 

Keith glares at him but doesn’t say anything.

 

“You don’t have to talk to me,” Adam says. “But I need you to _listen._ You’re on _very_ thin ice right now. If you keep going the way you’re going, you’re going to get expelled. I know I’m not Takashi, God, I wish I was half as good at this as he was--”

 

_“Is.”_

 

Adam feels his eye twitch. He considers a response for a second, decides to just let it go. “The point is, I’m worried about you.”

 

“Don’t be.” Keith focuses on the food he’s just sort of moving around on his plate and doesn’t look at Adam. “Shiro’s the one that wanted to help me. You left him. And now you’re giving up on him. So it’s not your problem anymore.”

 

“Giving up on-- _fuck,_ not this again.” Adam takes his glasses off and rubs his eyes. “I am not ‘giving up on him!’ I have a life too, and I’m trying to get on with it! That doesn’t mean I’m forgetting about him!”

 

“You know it wasn’t ‘pilot error,’” Keith says. “You know they weren’t even on the--”

 

_“Shh!”_ Adam lowers his voice. “I don’t know where or how you heard that and I don’t want to, but do you understand how much trouble you’re going to be in if the wrong person hears you say it? Getting expelled would be the _least_ of your worries!”

 

Keith just sits back, looking a little smug.

 

“Whatever you think you’re doing,” Adam starts, “you need to _stop._ This road is not going to take you anywhere good, kiddo--”

 

Keith’s head snaps up. _“You don’t get to call me that anymore,”_ he snarls, and there’s a fury in it Adam has never heard from him.

 

Adam’s eye twitches again. “Do you think he’d be proud of you for this? If he could see how you’re acting right now, do you think he’d be proud of you?”

 

“He never gave up on me,” Keith spits back. “I’m not giving up on him. I’m going to find him and if you’re not going to help me, then _stay out of my way!_ ”

 

“You’re not going to find him, Keith. He’s gone. Do you understand that? _He’s dead._ I’m sorry, I loved him and I hate it too but--”

 

“Bullshit. If you really loved him, you’d be helping me!”

 

And once again, Adam feels something snap inside him and he opens his mouth knowing he’s going to regret what he’s about to say, but he can’t stop himself.

 

“You have _no idea_ how sick he was, do you?” Adam hisses. “No, I _know_ you don’t because I guarantee he sugar-coated that shit for you. Did he tell you about the headaches? Or the seizures? Or all the side effects of all the drugs they had him on to keep it under control? Did he tell you he had to give up almost all of his favorite food because it kept him up sick all night if he ate it too soon after he took his meds? No, he didn’t, did he? And who took care of him through all of that? Huh? _Do you think I would have stayed with him as long as I did if I didn’t love him?_ ” Keith doesn’t say anything to that. “And his time was running out. If he’d made it back, he was looking at maybe a year, probably less, where he could still have a normal life--I’m not even talking about flying, I’m talking about _walking and feeding himself_ and _\--_ you know what? As much as I hated him flying while he was sick and as much as I hate that he took two people with him, I’m glad he at least got to go out quick and doing something he loved, so instead of flinging yourself down this conspiracy theory hole maybe you should _be grateful that you didn’t have to watch him die the way he would have if he--”_

 

A lot of things happen very quickly.

 

Adam hears a chair fall over, feels his head snap backwards, sees stars go supernova in his left eye, feels himself falling backwards in _his_ chair, feels his back hit the floor hard enough to knock the wind out of him. He hears a lot of voices yelling. He feels something warm running down his temple.

 

And worst of all, he hears Iverson shouting _“YOU! MY OFFICE! NOW!”_

 

Fuck. Oh, fuck, oh God, oh _fuck_ , no, no, _no,_ surely Keith didn’t punch him, surely Keith didn’t punch him right here in the chow hall, surely Keith didn’t punch him right here in the chow hall in front of fucking _Iverson--_

 

Someone, or a couple of someones, help get Adam upright. Someone presses a wad of napkins to his eyebrow, and someone else hands him his glasses--miraculously intact. Adam blinks the stars out of his eyes and his vision clears just in time for him to see Iverson, with a handful of the back of Keith’s collar, marching him out of the chow hall and oh, _goddammit--_

 

“Sir--” Adam struggles to his feet, wobbles a bit, and takes off after them. “Sir, _wait!”_

 

God fucking _dammit,_ he came down here trying to save Keith from getting expelled and now… and now he’s all but guaranteed it.

 

He chases them all the way to Iverson’s office, but they’ve got a head start and Adam hasn’t gotten around to putting his glasses back on and still can’t quite see where he’s going.

 

By the time he blows right past Iverson’s aide and stumbles into his office he’s a disheveled wreck, standing there panting with his glasses in one hand and a bloody wad of napkins still pressed against his eyebrow in the other. “Please cut him some slack, sir,” he wheezes.

 

Iverson just stares at him for a minute, mouth half-open, and Keith won’t even look at him.

 

“Wolf, what the f--what the _hell,”_ Iverson finally says.

 

Adam’s mind races, how the fuck is he going to spin this? “This is all--this is all a huge misunderstanding.”

 

“Misunderstanding, my _ass._ He assaulted an instructor,” Iverson points out, like Adam actually needs to be reminded of that while he’s standing there bleeding.

 

“He’s never done it before, and he won’t do it again. I’ll take responsibility for--”

 

“He’s decked other cadets before.”

 

“He’s decked _one_ cadet, _after_ that cadet spent a solid month harassing him.” Adam sighs. “Also... the instructor was being an asshole.”

 

Adam can almost hear Keith’s eyes roll. Iverson just stares at him and doesn’t say anything for a while.

 

“I’ll let you know what we decide in the morning,” he finally says. He points at Keith. “You. You are not to leave your quarters except to go to the latrine or the chow hall until you’re told otherwise.” Keith grunts out something that sounds maybe a little like _yes sir._ “And _you--”_ He points at Adam. “You’re picking a hell of a weird hill to die on, Wolf. Walk him back to his quarters and then go have Medical look at that.”

 

* * *

 

“Eeh.” Curtis dabs at Adam’s busted eyebrow with a bit of gauze and some antiseptic stuff, and Adam hisses a little. “It’s not bad, but you probably should have gone to Medical and let them--”

 

“It’s fine.”

 

Curtis gives him a look, like he knows that’s bullshit but he also knows better than to argue. So he just bandages it up as best he can and puts the first aid kit away. He comes back to the couch with one of those blue goo ice packs wrapped in a T-shirt and carefully presses it to Adam’s eyebrow. “Hold that on there… there you go. How much trouble is he in?”

 

“He punched me right in front of fucking _Iverson!_ How much trouble do you _think_ he’s in!?” Adam shakes his head. “I tried to go to bat for him, shit, if he hadn’t done it in front of _Iverson_ I would have just let it go because he was _right_ \--”

 

“Okay, no! Maybe you said some things you shouldn’t have, but he shouldn’t have _hit_ you!”

 

_“He was right to.”_ Adam flops back against the back of the couch and shuts his eyes. “Okay? I said--I said the worst fucking thing I could have possibly said to him and he was right to. God. I should have just kept my mouth shut, when am I going to fucking _learn_ \--”

 

“Adam…”

 

“I said a bunch of horrible shit to _the love of my fucking life_ and now he’s dead. I said a bunch of horrible shit to _the closest thing to a son I’m ever going to have_ and now _\--_ you know what, Curtis? Why don’t _you_ just go ahead and leave before I do it to you too?”

 

_“What!?_ Okay. _No._ I’m not going to do that.” Curtis tries to lay a hand on Adam’s shoulder. He shakes it off. “Adam, come on. Don't do this to yourself.”

 

“Just _get out!_ We both know it’s going to happen, sooner or later I’m going to say a bunch of horrible shit to you too, just go away, _I don’t want to hurt you too--_ ”

 

The next thing Adam knows, the whole world is warm and snug and smells like Curtis’ woodsy aftershave. Adam tries to squirm out of it, tries to put up a token fight but he doesn't really mean it and Curtis can tell, so instead he just collapses in Curtis’ arms and sobs against his shoulder.

 

Curtis just holds him tight and rocks him gently. “Don't do this to yourself,” he says again, combing his fingers through Adam’s hair.

 

_Fuck you, Takashi,_ Adam thinks, _fuck degenerative neuromuscular disorders in general and yours in particular and fuck your parents for putting the idea in your head that nothing you ever did would be enough and fuck you for trusting me to not screw everything up with Keith and especially fuck you for_ this, _this right here, right now, if you hadn’t left none of this would be happening right now, you selfish prick--_

 

Adam tries to will himself to shove Curtis away, say something that’ll shatter that big soft heart of his so he'll leave and never come back, but he can’t. He doesn’t want to hurt Curtis.That’s the _last_ thing Adam wants to do. But he knows he will anyway. Sooner or later, he will anyway.

 

“Curtis, _please_ ,” Adam chokes out, “don’t let me do this to you--”

 

“Shh.”

 

“I-I’m just--I’m just going to end up breaking your heart,” Adam babbles, hearing what’s coming out of his mouth and not being able to do a damn thing to stop it because that’s what he does these days, isn’t it, he opens his mouth and lets stupid shit fall out of it and hurts everyone he cares about? “You deserve better than this, you deserve better than _me_ \-- _”_

 

That catches Curtis off guard. Truth be told, it catches Adam off guard too.

 

“...better than you?” Curtis repeats. “Adam… what are you _really_ trying to tell me?”

 

Adam can’t say it. He can’t even _think_ it, not in so many words. He’s been thinking _around_ it for a while now, and most of what he’s been thinking about it is _no._ No, he’s not going to do this to Curtis. No, he’s not going to treat his best friend like a fucking _consolation prize._ No, he’s not going to do this, he loves Curtis too much--

 

And there it is. He’s called it by name.

 

He loves Curtis.

 

All the more reason to _not fucking do this to him._

 

Adam tries to dodge by burying his face in Curtis’ shoulder and shaking his head _no,_ but that’s not going to get him off the hook. Curtis slides a fingertip under his chin and tips his head up so he can see Adam’s eyes--and what the hell kind of genetic lottery did Curtis win to end up that tall, dark, and handsome and get those beautiful blue eyes to boot!?

 

He still can’t say it. But maybe he doesn’t need to. Curtis brushes Adam’s tears away with the pad of his thumb, then he leans down and--

 

It’s almost nothing. Just the barest brush of his lips against Adam’s. It’s not a kiss. It’s a question, and Curtis is waiting for an answer.

 

A lot of things start coming back to Adam at once.

 

That day he had that panic attack in the chow hall and spilled his guts about Takashi’s illness, that day Curtis said _I hate to see you hurting like this._

 

That night he left Takashi, that night Curtis dropped everything to visit him in his hotel room.

 

The many, _many_ nights since the launch, when Curtis made a point of coming over to talk about anything but the Kerberos mission.

 

The “friendly” heads on shoulders.

 

Curtis coming all the way to the sim bay to personally break the news to him about the Kerberos crew, then driving him back to the dorm and nursing him through a breakdown even though _he_ was hurting too.

 

And now this.

 

Adam knows Curtis had a big soft spot in his big soft heart for Takashi. He’s known it for years.

 

But until now, it never occurred to Adam that Curtis’ heart might be big enough for more than one big soft spot... or that one of those big soft spots might be for _him._

 

Which… Which would make using him for a rebound that much worse.

 

But Adam stretches up and gives Curtis his answer: another little brush back. Curtis whimpers, low and soft in the back of his throat, and he pulls Adam close again.

 

“I’m… I’m not sure this isn’t a rebound thing,” Adam whispers against the side of his neck.

 

“I wouldn’t mind if it was,” Curtis whispers back.

 

_“I’d_ mind. I won’t do that to you. I _can’t._ I just--I need to be sure it’s not.”

 

“Okay.” Curtis nods. “Then let’s just take it slow for now and see where it goes.”

 

Adam nods against his chest, shuts his eyes, and tries to relax. Slow. Yeah. He can do slow.

 

* * *

 

Adam wakes up some hours later on the couch, with his head on a very comfortable pillow and a blanket over his shoulders.

 

The blanket has a collar and sleeves. The pillow has a heartbeat.

 

He should get up, he thinks. He should go to bed. But he doesn’t. He snuggles back down against Curtis’ chest and goes back to sleep.

 

What if this _isn’t_ a rebound thing?

 

* * *

 

Adam gets the word first thing the next morning, after Curtis has gotten up and gone to the gym.

 

It’s official. Keith’s been expelled. And the only reason he’s not being given one hour to pack his shit and clear out before he’s removed from the base by an MP is, Iverson is doing Adam the courtesy of letting _him_ remove Keith from the base.

 

Adam offers to put Keith up in a hotel for a few days, says he’ll start shopping for a two-bedroom apartment for the two of them that afternoon and they can look at the options together and pick something out they both like and then maybe once things settle down they can see about getting Keith into a trade school or something. Their relationship is a smoldering crater and Adam sure as hell didn't expect to suddenly become a for-real single parent to an angry teenager this week but goddammit, after everything that’s happened he _owes_ Keith this much, needs to offer him some kind of a stable home life instead of just leaving him to fend for himself on the outside.

 

Except… fending for himself is exactly what Keith says he wants to do. He says he wants to just go back to his and his dad’s old house and be left alone. Adam tries like hell to talk him out of it, begs him to at least take him up on the hotel room and think about it because the idea of Keith living by himself in the middle of the desert fucking _terrifies_ him, but Keith won’t budge. He says Adam can drive him out there, or he can hotwire a car and drive himself out there--and Adam knows he’ll do it.

 

So he rents a van again, rents a trailer for the hoverbike, helps Keith pack up the stuff in his room (there isn’t much), stops by the storage unit to get the stuff out of _there,_ gives him a ride, promises him an allowance until he can find a job because he won’t be able to live off what Takashi left him forever, tells him to call if he needs anything, knows he won’t.

 

Keith doesn’t say a word the whole time they’re unloading the van, and as soon as the last box is in the house he slams the door in Adam’s face.

 

That day is a rough one. And Curtis must have known it would be, because that evening he shows up at Adam’s door with takeout and they cuddle and watch TV until Adam passes out on his chest again.

 

This time when Adam wakes up in the middle of the night snuggled up with Curtis on his couch, it’s a little harder to go straight back to sleep. He lays there listening to Curtis’ heartbeat under his ear, slow and steady.

 

He’s still terrified that he’s going to end up hurting this sweet man.

 

But maybe… maybe it’ll be okay. They’ll go slow and see what happens.

 

Maybe it’ll be okay.

 

* * *

 

Adam is still carrying that envelope marked _contingency plan_ around, in the same back pocket as his wallet. He’s been carrying it since the day he found it in that safe deposit box.

 

Every few days he takes it out and opens it and reads that letter again, whispers “ _fuck you,_ Takashi,” again, puts the letter back in the envelope, and tucks the whole thing back in his pocket.

 

But a few weeks after he drives Keith back out to his house in the desert, he takes it out, opens it up, reads the letter…and sits there for a long time, staring at Takashi’s last words to him, thinking about what they mean.

 

“All right,” he finally whispers, tucking the letter back into the envelope and tucking the envelope back into his pocket. “All right, I’ll try. But if I fuck this up I’m blaming _you.”_

 

It’s all too easy to imagine that he can hear Takashi laughing at that.

 

* * *

 

The next Wednesday, Adam has a short day so he shows up for rehearsal in some nice khakis and casual but _nice_ casual shoes and a button-down shirt. Yes, for the first time in ...entirely too long, he’s actually ironed some civilian clothes. He’s even combed his hair a little more than usual and perhaps even put a little bit of product in it for once. But Curtis seems to like the messy look, so he doesn’t fuss with it _too_ much.

 

There’s a little drama with the junior cadets; one of the tenors has hit that particular developmental milestone where his voice does whatever the hell it wants whether he likes it or not and it frustrates the poor kid almost to tears to begin with, and it doesn’t help when one of the sopranos makes fun of him. But they get through their three pieces for the winter concert. The senior cadets get through their three pieces without incident. And then the cadets bail for the evening and the adults start filing in.

 

Curtis does a double-take when he sees a relatively fancily-groomed Adam at the piano, and Adam flashes him a little grin and waves him over before they get started.

 

“You look nice,” Curtis says. “Got a hot date?”

 

“I was just… I was wondering if you wanted to go have a drink or something after we get done. So to answer your question…” Adam lets out a little nervous laugh. “You tell me?”

 

Curtis just _beams_ at him. “You’re asking me out on an actual date.”

 

“Well… yeah.” Adam pretends to be _very_ interested in the corner of a page of sheet music. “I ironed and everything.”

 

“Man…” Curtis plucks at his uniform and laughs softly. “If I’d known you were gonna do that, I would have ironed too.”

 

“So… that’s a yes?”

 

“That’s a yes.” Curtis pats Adam on the shoulder and maybe lets his hand linger there a little longer than necessary, and takes his seat. And Adam just grins like a loon.

 

Of course Adam can’t pick out Curtis’ voice, not out of the whole tenor section, much less out of the whole chorus, but he likes to imagine he can. That it’s just him and the piano and Curtis and nobody else in the auditorium. Every once in a while he glances over the top of his sheet music at Curtis, and every once in a while he catches Curtis glancing back at him, and they smile a little when they catch each other.

 

After rehearsal wraps up they stop by Curtis’ room so he can change out of his uniform. He comes out of his bedroom in nice jeans and a dark blue sweater with a lighter blue dress shirt under it and-- _cowboy boots!?_ Whatever, it looks great on him. A flour sack would look great on him, but this _really_ looks great. Those jeans are just the right cut to show off his long, lean legs and that sweater is making his gorgeous blue eyes sparkle in a way that makes all of Adam’s insides feel like they’re melting into a pool of warm honey.

 

Then they head into town. Adam doesn’t drink much and neither does Curtis as far as he knows, but there’s a quiet little bar kind of hidden away in a strip mall. It doesn’t look like much on the outside but the inside is nice and they have soft music and craft beer and pretty good small plate stuff and cozy booths and _no fucking sportsball on TV._ Most importantly, they don’t have to yell at each other across the table.

 

Curtis asks the bartender to recommend something sweet and gets a raspberry cider; Adam finds an IPA with an amusing name and decides to give it a try. Curtis wrinkles up his nose, and Adam laughs. “Don’t like those, huh?”

 

“Nope. Way too bitter.”

 

They've been friends for years so they could skip the “getting to know you” small talk if they wanted. But Adam decides to have a little fun and turn it around. “I'll take you out for ice cream next time,” he says. “You and your sweet tooth.”

 

“Aww.” God, Curtis has the most amazing smile. “And you don't even like sweets. I feel special now. I might even buy you a bag of that nasty black stuff you like so much.”

 

The bartender brings them their glasses. Curtis’ cider is a garish shade of pink but he seems to approve of the taste. Adam’s beer is… well, it's an IPA, not a remarkable one but it's nice and hoppy.

 

Adam is driving and Curtis doesn't feel right about drinking more than he does,  so they only have the one each, nursing them for the better part of an hour over their finger food and conversation.

 

Later, Adam walks Curtis back to his room and there's just enough liquid courage in his bloodstream to let him try an actual kiss.

 

Just a little one.

 

Maybe another little one.

 

Maybe a not-so-little one.

 

It feels okay. No, not just okay. It feels _right._

 

Curtis sighs into the kiss and slides his hands around Adam’s waist to rest at the small of his back, and Adam’s hands come up to rest on his shoulders. Adam can taste raspberries on his lips. He wonders if he tastes like hops and thinks maybe he should have sucked it up and ordered something sweet too.

 

* * *

 

They go out for drinks after rehearsal the next week, too.

 

And the next.

 

And the next thing they know… it’s a thing. Adam doesn’t even have to ask anymore. They just finish up, put their music away, and go.

 

Then a few weeks after that, the dates don’t end at their doors anymore. Now they end with cuddling and kissing on one couch or another. Sometimes they end with falling asleep on that couch.

 

Adam starts to think he could get used to this.

 

* * *

 

And then a few weeks after _that,_ Adam wakes up at two in the morning, alone in his own bed, with a raging hard-on and a head full of fading dreams about Curtis taking care of it for him.

 

He ends up having to jack off twice before he can get back to sleep.

 

He can’t remember the last time he had to do that.

 

* * *

 

The first time they have sex, it’s… well, with almost anyone else, it would have been a catastrophe.

 

Adam was sure he was ready for it. Absolutely certain. His sex drive has been stuck in “park” since he left Takashi and now all of a sudden thinking about Curtis touching him throws it into overdrive. He wants--no, he _needs_ it, God, it’s been so fucking long and he _needs this._ And he knows Curtis wants it too--the way Curtis holds his hips and pulls him close when they’re slow dancing now, the tongue and the _teeth_ in that kiss the other night, that warm breath and that flick of tongue in Adam’s ear that followed...

 

They go out for their now-weekly after-rehearsal drinks and a few hours later they’re on Adam’s couch, and the usual cuddling and soft kissing gradually gives way to deeper kisses and hands sneaking under clothing. They get each other out of their shirts and Adam is fine with that, Adam is absolutely on board with that. Curtis is kissing his way down Adam’s neck from jawline to collarbone and running his hands over every inch of Adam’s bare skin, all of it slow and sweet with an undeniable undercurrent of _need_. Adam’s skin prickles into goosebumps under Curtis’ huge hands and he’s already so hard it hurts. He goes for Curtis’ belt, gets it halfway unbuckled and--

 

And that’s as far as he can go.

 

Adam loses his nerve and he freezes there, with his fingers hooked into Curtis’ belt. He can’t move. He tries. He tries like hell. He tries to think of why he had to get himself off in the shower the day before, and a couple days before that, and a couple days before _that_ , tries to call up those mental images that got him so hot then, tries to think of all the things he imagined Curtis doing to him and they just… they won’t come up.

 

By now Curtis knows something isn’t right, and he pulls back. “Hey,” he says softly, one hand still on Adam’s shoulder. “You okay?”

 

Adam can’t even answer him. But as it turns out, he doesn’t need to.

 

“Okay.” Curtis gently unhooks Adam’s paralyzed fingers from his belt, guides Adam’s arms around his waist, and wraps both his arms around Adam’s shoulders and pulls him close. “It’s okay. We don’t have to.”

 

Adam just leans on him, burning cheek pressed against Curtis’ bare shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he finally whispers. “I thought I was ready.”

 

“Don’t be. Okay? Don’t be sorry.” Curtis rocks him, just a little subtle motion, just enough to relax Adam a little. “Just want to cuddle?” Adam nods against his shoulder, and his fingers comb through Adam’s hair. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”

 

“Sorry,” Adam whispers again. “I know you wanted to.”

 

“Shh.” Curtis holds him close and kisses his forehead. “I don’t want to unless _you_ do.”

 

And Adam knows he means it. He really is too sweet for his own good.

 

They stay there like that for a while, Adam doesn’t know how long and he doesn’t care. It feels nice, all this warm bare skin pressed against his own. Eventually he notices that having his cheek against Curtis’ shoulder like this puts his lips really close to the side of his neck. So close that Adam can’t help but touch a little soft kiss there.

 

Curtis gasps when he does that, so he does it again.

 

And again.

 

He feels his courage start to come back. Along with a few of those mental images. And when he kisses Curtis’ neck again he holds on, sucking at the thin skin just above his collarbone, adding a little flick of his tongue when he lets go. He feels goosebumps under his lips, feels Curtis shiver against him.

 

“Adam…”

 

“Can we… can we try again?”

 

Curtis runs his fingers through Adam’s hair. “Are you sure?”

 

Adam doesn’t answer that--not out loud. He picks his head up off Curtis’ shoulder and cranes up to kiss him, long and slow and deep. His fingers find that half-unbuckled belt and finish the job. This time, he doesn’t lose his nerve. He gets Curtis out of his jeans, and Curtis gets him out of _his._

 

He had Curtis figured for a bottom and that would have been perfectly okay. Adam generally prefers to be on the receiving end but for the right person--Takashi was one of the right people, and Curtis will be too if his theory pans out--he doesn’t mind giving as long as his partner is willing to give it to _him_ once in a while.

 

But then Curtis wraps one arm around Adam’s shoulders and the other around his waist and eases him off the couch and lays him down on the floor and crawls on top of him and wedges his knees between Adam’s thighs and…

 

Adam has never in his life been so utterly _delighted_ to be wrong about something.

 

Curtis insists on using protection. Adam doesn’t think they really need it, but it’s not a _bad_ idea and it’s definitely a sweet gesture. Besides, it’ll make the cleanup easier. Curtis grabs his jeans, goes into the left hip pocket, and comes out with a condom and at least three of those little single-use packets of lube and sets them on the floor next to Adam’s hip.

 

Adam can’t help but grin at that. “You sure came prepared, didn’t you?”

 

“I, uh… I’ve kind of _been_ coming prepared the last couple weeks… I wasn’t sure but I thought, y’know, just in case...” Curtis looks up then and flashes Adam a little impish grin. “Um…you’re not allergic to latex, right?” he asks. “It’d kinda ruin the mood if I had to stab you with my Epi-pen…”

 

Adam sputters out a laugh and assures him that won’t be an issue. He reaches down to the pile of stuff by his hip, intending to give Curtis some assistance with that condom, but Curtis gently nudges his hand away.

 

“Not yet. Let’s take care of _you_ first.”

 

Oh.

 

_Oh._

 

Oh God. Oh holy shit. Curtis isn’t just a top… he’s _that_ kind of top. The kind that wants to make _extra_ sure his partner is satisfied before he gets his own rocks off.

 

Adam makes a mental note to try and figure out what spirit he impressed lately and how he did that, and then keep doing whatever it was he did.

 

Curtis makes Adam come _twice_ before he even touches the condom again--the first time with his mouth, the second with nothing but two slick fingers at just the right speed, depth, and angle. The first one takes all of thirty seconds. The second one leaves him shuddering and weak all over and he’s certain that there’s no way in Hell he’s going to be able to come a _third_ time.

 

But then Adam hears a wrapper crinkle and he looks up and sees Curtis kneeling between his thighs, and he forgets how to breathe for a second. Adam watches Curtis turn the simple act of putting on a condom into some kind of reverse striptease, watches him slowly unroll it down his shaft and apply some of that lube at the same time by thrusting into his hand, listens to the soft but urgent little noises that gorgeous warm tenor voice of his makes while he’s doing that, and suddenly Adam thinks that yeah, maybe he _could_ come one more time...

 

This isn’t the first time Adam has seen Curtis naked--they went through the academy together, they go to the gym together sometimes, both involve somewhat-less-than-private shower arrangements. But it’s the first time Adam has gotten a good look at him naked in _this_ context and _God,_ the man is beautiful, all long legs and lean muscle and bronze skin and blue eyes. By this point Adam doesn’t even care if he gets off again, he just needs Curtis inside him _right goddamn now._

 

He gets that wish in short order--Curtis finishes getting himself prepped and then he just sort of ducks under Adam’s legs, hooks Adam’s knees over his shoulders and--oh God, oh _fuck,_ how the hell is Curtis so good at this!? It’s exactly what Adam wants, what he _needs,_ it’s just the right angle and it’s deep and slow and somehow both tender and a little rough at the same time. And as it turns out, that condom is one of those really interesting textured ones and those little ridges are doing some _amazing_ things to a lot of really sensitive nerve endings. Adam actually calls him on that, as much as he _can_ when he can barely remember how words work, and Curtis just laughs and leans down and purrs “safe _and_ fun” into Adam’s ear.

 

Yeah, Adam is definitely going to come one more time--and he does, almost as soon as one of Curtis’ hands wraps around his cock. And that’s all Curtis can stand. He moans low and deep in his throat and adjusts his angle--he pushes himself upright and clamps his hands onto Adam’s hips and _God,_ Adam is honestly starting to wonder if these are just really persistent aftershocks or if he’s actually having a _fourth_ orgasm. Curtis pulls Adam tight against him and then locks up solid, crushing his mouth to Adam’s calf to muffle the noises he makes when _he_ comes. And oh holy shit, those noises are _definitely_ going to be a permanent fixture in Adam’s mental porn stash forever now.

 

Curtis just sort of collapses over Adam, bearing his weight on his elbows to keep from squishing him. Honestly, Adam wouldn’t mind being squished. But...

 

“Are you, uh…” Adam lets out a soft breathy laugh against the side of Curtis’ head. “Do you want to keep going? Doesn’t seem fair for you to just have one…”

 

“Mrm.” Curtis nuzzles Adam’s ear. “‘M good. Had plenty of fun watching _you_. What was that, three?”

 

“Think so. Maybe _four._ ”

 

“Wow.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

They lay there on the floor catching their breath for a while--Adam on his back, Curtis draped over him, the warmth and weight of his body threatening to lull Adam to sleep right then and there, and he thinks for a little while that the aching neck he’ll have in the morning would be a small price to pay. But eventually they get up, and clean up, and relocate to Adam’s bed.

 

Curtis, unsurprisingly, wants to be the big spoon. And Adam is totally fine with that.

 

He’s fine with _all_ of this.

 

* * *

 

Adam is working the bugs out of a couple of new sim missions the next day when he gets a text.

 

_Still thinking about last night ♥_

 

A sly little grin spreads across Adam’s face. Well, if he wasn’t thinking about it before, he sure is now. _Me too,_ he sends back. _But aren’t you on duty?_

 

_I’m on break :),_ Curtis sends back.

 

That sly little grin widens a bit. _In that case… I’m still FEELING it. My abs are sore as hell and if I close my eyes & concentrate I can still feel you inside me. _Oh, he shouldn’t be doing this--Curtis might be on a break and Adam might have his own office to retreat to and those uniform jackets are long enough to camouflage a hard-on, at least, but… well, that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?

 

_Hnnng that’s hot,_ Curtis texts back.

 

Adam thinks about it for a bit. Definitely shouldn’t be doing this on duty but… _I want more_.

 

_Me too. See you tonight?_

 

_You bet. ♥_

 

Adam makes a mental note to stop by the drugstore and get a _big_ box of really interesting textured condoms.

 

* * *

 

Later that night Adam is on his knees relishing the sound of Curtis moaning his name and he can’t remember why he ever lost his nerve.

 

* * *

 

Those single officer dorm beds are small, and neither Adam nor Curtis is a small man. So by necessity, sleepovers involve a lot of _very_ cozy sleeping positions. The good old spoon technique works fine, though, and even a few months later Adam is still perfectly happy to be the little spoon. He’s come to love the way Curtis nuzzles the back of his neck early in the morning, the way Curtis’ feet never seem to get cold, the way Curtis tucks the blanket up around both of them.

 

Adam can smell the ghost of something woodsy on his pillow now. He can hardly remember it smelling like anything else.

 

Of course he hasn’t forgotten about Takashi. Of course he still misses Takashi. Still wishes things could have been different.

 

But this is what he’s been dealt.

 

One night they’re lying in Adam’s bed with the sheets freshly changed at two in the morning and the sweat barely dry, Curtis’ arm tight around Adam’s waist, Adam with as much of his bare back pressed up against Curtis’ bare chest as he can manage. They’re not quite asleep, not quite awake, just sort of drifting in that sea of post-coital bliss.

 

“Adam?”

 

“Mmm?”

 

“Are you…” Curtis reaches up to pet Adam’s hair. “Are you happy?”

 

Adam has to think about that for a while.

 

The last time he could remember being genuinely happy, he was with Takashi.

 

The last time until now.

 

He still misses Takashi. He always will. There’s no way anyone could ever replace him. Despite the havoc his illness and both of their issues around it wreaked on their relationship towards the end, Adam will always love him.

 

But Curtis isn’t a replacement. He’s not a consolation prize. He’s not something Adam is settling for. He’s amazing in his own right and Adam loves him.

 

“Yeah,” he says. “I am.”

 

“Me too.” Curtis presses a soft kiss to the back of his shoulder. “Love you.”

 

Adam snuggles back against him. “Love you too.”

 

* * *

 

The next afternoon when Adam comes home from work and changes out of his uniform, he takes his stuff out of his pockets and sets it on the nightstand like he always does. Including that envelope marked _contingency plan._

 

He picks it up and considers it for a while.

 

He goes into his closet and takes a shoebox off the top shelf. It’s full of little mementoes--letters, photos, trinkets, and assorted scraps of paper and bits of junk with immeasurable sentimental value.

 

He kisses the envelope, tucks it into the shoebox, and puts the box back on the shelf.

 

He never reads the letter again.

 

* * *

 

Things are going great with Curtis. They haven’t quite started thinking about rings or an actual house yet, but they’ve moved into a one-bedroom apartment just off base. They both love what they do at the Garrison. They argue once in a while, but they talk it out like adults. They bring out the best in each other.

 

Adam takes Curtis home to meet his parents. They love each other. Curtis gets to play in two feet of snow for the first time, and he’s tickled that Calgary is basically Houston except it’s cold and there’s no Whataburger.

 

Curtis takes Adam home to meet _his_ parents. They love each other too. Adam gets to walk on a real saltwater beach for the first time, and he’s tickled that Houston is basically Calgary except it’s hot and there’s no Tim Horton’s (but the Mexican food is _so_ much better).

 

Keith is still convinced that Takashi is alive out there somewhere, and he’s pretty much entirely stopped talking to Adam, and that hurts. But Adam has left the door open and Curtis is sure that when Keith is ready, he’ll knock.

 

It’s not the life Adam imagined for himself when he was younger. It sure wasn’t the life he imagined even a couple short years ago. But he wouldn’t trade it for anything.

 

It all starts falling apart the day after a weird meteorite lands in the desert. The day three cadets go missing.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I need you to keep this with you. If Takashi makes it back, and I’m… I’m gone--” Curtis starts to protest. Adam gently shushes him. “I want you to give it to him, and--this is very important--I want you to watch it with him. Okay? Can you do that for me?”
> 
> Curtis opens his mouth to say something. Instead, he closes it and looks down at the little case in his hand. “What is it?”
> 
> “It’s a message for both of you.” Adam curls his hand back around Curtis’ hand, around the little case. “Just promise me. If he comes back and I’m gone, promise me you’ll watch it with him.”
> 
> Curtis keeps staring down at Adam’s hand wrapped around his, closing it tight around the case. “I will. I promise,” he finally says. “God, I don’t even want to think about it.”
> 
> “I know, baby.” Adam drops his head onto Curtis’ shoulder and holds him tight. “I know. I don’t either.”

Veronica’s brother. His roommate. Their training partner.

 

They just didn’t show up for morning formation. And okay, Lance was kind of on thin ice partly because he didn’t seem to know what an alarm clock was for, it wasn’t unusual for him to come powersliding into morning formation late. But it  _ was  _ unusual for him to miss it entirely. Even more unusual for his roommate to miss it. Absolutely unheard of for that Gunderson kid to miss it.

 

They’re not in their rooms. They didn’t report for sick call. They haven’t been spotted in town. 

 

And that’s not the only weird shit going on right now.

 

Something crash-landed in the desert the night before. Adam didn’t see it, he and Curtis were asleep by then. Meteorite, is all Adam hears. It’s all Curtis hears too; he works the day shift.

 

Iverson has a black eye. He mumbles something about getting mugged and boy, you should see the other guy. He’s a shitty actor and Adam knows he’s lying, but… why?

 

Adam tries texting Keith.  _ You see anything weird in the desert last night? _

 

Nothing. Keith doesn’t even read it.

 

Curtis tells Adam that just out of curiosity, he tried to pull up the comm log from around the time the meteorite would have hit and found nothing out of the ordinary. But here’s the weird part: he  _ immediately  _ got called into Sanda’s office and chewed up one side and down the other for dicking around checking the log when he should be monitoring what’s going on  _ now. _ He’s still a little shaken by that when he gets home that evening and tells Adam about all of this.

 

But the weirdest of the weird shit is yet to come.

 

If Adam hadn’t been outside at that exact moment, hadn’t been looking in just the right direction at just the right time, he never would have seen it. But just for a second, he saw… 

 

Well, what the fuck  _ did  _ he see? Some kind of experimental fighter? Blue? Shaped kind of like a… something with  _ legs!?  _ Flying like its pilot was on several different hallucinogenic drugs and/or being attacked by rabid squirrels?

 

And then it went straight up, and it was gone.

 

Curtis  _ was  _ on duty when that happened. He tells Adam there was a great deal of communication going on for him to monitor, most of it variations on the theme of “what the hell is  _ that!?”  _ from enough different sources that clearly  _ something  _ weird was going down. And once the ... _ whatever the hell it was _ was gone, the entire mission control crew got treated to a closed-and-locked-door visit and lecture about security clearances and protocol and so on from, guess who, fucking Sanda. 

 

When Curtis tried to pull  _ that  _ log up later, he found nothing out of the ordinary which he  _ knows  _ is bullshit because he was  _ there.  _ And he got, guess what, _ another _ ass-chewing from Sanda about poking around in old logs _ \-- _ this one with the threat of a court-martial for dereliction of duty if he did it again. That scared the hell out of poor Curtis but what  _ really  _ scared him was, as far as he knew,  _ nobody was supposed to be able to edit the comm logs.  _ That would defeat the entire purpose of keeping logs, wouldn’t it?

 

Adam doubts Sanda will follow through on that threat, but Curtis isn’t willing to take any chances. He’s honestly not sure he’s even supposed to be telling Adam about any of this, but Adam saw the thing and Curtis isn’t really telling him anything he doesn’t already know, that being “nobody knows what the fuck it was” (of course this being Curtis, he doesn’t actually say “fuck” but the sentiment is there). He swears off detective work and decides to just keep his head down and do his job, and Adam doesn’t blame him.

 

Adam keeps trying Keith and getting nothing. Keith isn’t even reading his texts and Adam’s calls go straight to voicemail. 

 

Something is wrong around here.

 

Adam drives out to Keith’s house the next day. Curtis offers to go with him, but Adam isn’t sure that’s a good idea.

 

Nobody’s home. Keith’s hoverbike is there, but he isn’t. Adam considers breaking the door down, then asks himself what the hell he’s thinking. But he peeks in the windows and… what the fuck was Keith up to out here!? He’s got a wall covered in maps and sticky notes and pictures and all kinds of circles and arrows and other conspiracy theory-looking bullshit, all kinds of radio equipment all over the place--some of it old, some of it new, and some of it military-grade and almost certainly stolen from the goddamn  _ Garrison _ , what the  _ fuck!?  _

 

The logical explanation is that Keith has lost every last bit of his shit living out here in the desert by himself and he might hurt himself or someone else--like, say, three missing cadets--if he hasn’t already. But Adam’s gut says given all the weird shit that’s been happening around the Garrison lately, Keith finding a weird experimental blue leg-having fighter out in the desert and maybe taking three missing cadets for a joyride in it would be the  _ least  _ weird shit that’s happened this week.

 

Adam doesn’t know what else to do, so he leaves a note under the door:  _ call me as soon as you get home, there’s a lot of weird shit going on and I KNOW you know something. -A _

 

What the  _ fuck  _ was Keith doing out here?

 

What if… what if he was right?

 

What if he actually found--

 

No.

 

_ No. _

 

Best to not even go there.

 

* * *

 

Keith never calls. Adam drives back out there a week later and this time, he fully intends to kick the fucking door in and sit the kid down for a nice long talk whether he likes it or not.

 

Until he sees the dust-covered hoverbike exactly where it was before. Until he sees his note, still peeking out from under the door.

 

Keith hasn’t been back.

 

* * *

 

Of course he tries to file a missing persons report. But they get to the part where the officer asks Adam what his relationship to the missing person is and apparently “kind of unofficially adopted dad #2” isn’t a good enough answer. The officer keeps taking down the details though, and she nods and smiles and assures Adam they’ll keep an eye out but, well, since they’re not actually relatives Adam will understand if they can’t talk to him about this anymore.

 

No, actually, he  _ won’t  _ fucking understand, he thinks but does not say, and not for the first time he wishes he and Takashi had just gone ahead and officially adopted Keith instead of waiting until after a wedding that never happened but… well, too late to do anything about that now.

 

* * *

 

They never find the missing cadets. 

 

Keith never comes back. Adam goes back out to his house a few more times. The layer of dust on his hoverbike is thicker every time and remains undisturbed other than the occasional paw print from some small animal or another. He knows he probably  _ should  _ break the door down at this point, go in there and see what the fuck Keith was up to out here, but… where would he even start looking, and what would he even be looking  _ for? _ From what he can see of that wall-o-conspiracy bullshit, Keith’s notes look like the fucking Voynich Manuscript, and not just because of his sloppy handwriting. 

 

They never see that weird blue legship again. 

 

And after a while, everyone just sort of gets on with their lives. Of course Veronica is still worried about her brother, of course Adam is still worried about Keith, and Lance’s roommate and that Gunderson kid surely have families that are worried about  _ them, _ but… there are no leads, and sitting around chewing their fingernails to the quick isn’t going to help. 

 

So Adam keeps teaching and keeps flying and keeps playing the piano, and Curtis keeps monitoring communications and keeps singing, and they do the things they enjoy doing together in their downtime, and that’s all they can do.

 

* * *

 

And then  _ even more  _ weird shit starts happening.

 

There’s a lot of commotion one night, none of which Curtis hears any details about because he’s still working the day shift and he’s not willing to risk that court-martial Sanda threatened him with for poking around in the comm logs. He knows he wouldn’t find anything anyway, because obviously  _ someone  _ is doctoring the logs when weird shit happens around here. 

 

But a couple of weeks later some of it starts coming to light. There are a lot of new projects. Plans for new base defenses and weapons and some kind of massive ship. There are rumors about alien technology--and about all this shit being built to counter  _ other  _ alien technology.

 

And then one day Adam gets called into Iverson’s office. Iverson won’t say why. Just tells him to get his ass up there on the double. He feels the bottom threaten to drop out of his stomach and he’s sure this is because they found Keith’s body out in the desert somewhere.

 

He’s not even remotely prepared for what it’s actually about.

 

_ Commander Holt is back.  _ And if he’s alive that means… 

 

It’s all Adam can do to stay on his feet and keep his ears functioning. 

 

“Sir,” he chokes out, “it’s--it’s good to see you.”

 

Iverson just sits back in his chair, and Adam quietly takes back a few things he’s said about the man. “We need to talk to you about a few things, Wolf. Have a seat.”

 

Oh, thank fucking God. Adam doesn’t so much sit down as fall into the chair.

 

“Well…” Commander Holt puts a little thing on Iverson’s desk and taps a few things on it. “First things first. I was asked to pass a couple of messages on to you…”

 

Adam almost cries when he sees Keith. Wherever he is, he’s okay. He’s wearing some kind of lightly armored alien spacesuit thing with a hood, and it looks like this was actually a recording of a screen--wherever Commander Holt was, Keith was somewhere else, but they could communicate. 

 

That angry teenager is gone. He looks so grown-up, like someone who’s found his calling--like the man he and Takashi hoped he could be. 

 

“Adam… I’m sorry, we’ve got a mission soon and I have to make this quick but listen... I was in a really bad place and I know it’s not an excuse, but I just... I don’t know when I can come back but when I do I want to apologize to you in person. You--you tried. You really did.  And... I appreciate it.”

 

Almost, hell. He  _ does  _ cry.

 

But there’s more.

 

Adam makes some kind of noise, he’s not sure what, but--

 

_ He’s alive.  _

 

He’s alive and despite the scar, despite the fact that part of his hair has turned white, despite the weird robot arm, despite the fact that the two or three years the doctors gave him have long since run out, he looks great. He looks  _ healthy.  _ There’s no electrostimulator on his wrist. He doesn’t seem to have lost any muscle out there--hell, he’s  _ put some on! _

 

“I don’t know when I’ll be able to come home and… I know you’re probably getting on with your life--I  _ hope  _ you are. And I, uh… you’re not going to believe this but--I’m okay.  _ I’m really okay. _ I don’t know how it happened and I kinda don’t want to question it too much but… but that doesn’t change what happened, and it doesn’t make up for what I put you through, and… Adam, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I miss you and I’ll always love you but… I hope you--I hope you didn’t wait for me. I hope you found someone who’s treating you right. Take care of yourself.”

 

And that’s all.

 

Takashi is alive. He’s alive and he’s cured and he’s--

 

(later, Adam will play this back in his head and think there was something just sort of …  _ off,  _ something about his eyes, but he’ll chalk it up to the shock of seeing Takashi alive messing with his head)

 

Adam takes back a few more things he’s said when Iverson just silently pushes a box of tissues across his desk. “Thank you,” he chokes out.

 

“There’s one other thing. The short version is, we’ve got a lot of new and very powerful enemies out there, and we need to be ready for them.” Commander Holt taps the little device a few more times, and the display changes to--what the hell  _ is  _ that!? It looks like a fighter jet but right away Adam can tell these specs are--it’s impossible. There’s no way the Garrison could build this. They might as well put two donkeys in a barn and try to breed a unicorn that poops ice cream with rainbow sprinkles and a cherry on top. 

 

“This is the MFE-Ares,” Commander Holt says, “and to get right to the point--we’re going to need your help developing it.”

 

Adam pulls himself together and shakes his head. “Looks great but I see four impossible things right at first glance,” he says. “Give me a few minutes and I can find more. This thing looks amazing, but it can’t be built.”

 

“Not with  _ Earth  _ technology,” Commander Holt says, with a sly little grin.

 

“The engineers are going to need feedback from an actual pilot and you’re the best we have,” Iverson says. “And we’ll need you to develop some simulator missions--your missions make grown-ass pilots cry, if anyone can get some warm bodies ready to fly this thing for real, you can. We’re also going to get you a list of candidates so you can pick the rest of your team.”

 

“The rest of my--” Adam’s eyes go wide. 

 

“You’ll be leading the squadron.” Is Iverson actually smiling? Man, that’s… kind of scary. “By the way--” Yeah, he _ is  _ smiling, and Adam is definitely a little afraid. “--you’re out of uniform,  _ Commander Wolf.” _

 

* * *

 

Adam cannot  _ wait  _ to get home and tell Curtis about his new job and his shiny new third stripe. But he kind of has to, because the whole “commanding a squadron of fighters based on advanced alien tech” thing is probably not something they should be chatting about in the middle of the chow hall or some shit. Much less the whole “Takashi is alive and well and commanding a squadron of missing cadets plus one (1) alien princess in alien lion ships and also Keith is some kind of space ninja” thing.

 

But as it turns out, Curtis has some big news of his own--and he comes home with his own shiny new third stripe on his shoulders.

 

“You got promoted!?” Adam babbles, pointing at Curtis’ uniform.

 

_ “You  _ got promoted!” Curtis babbles back, throwing his arms around Adam’s waist and lifting him up off the floor. “Yeah, I heard. I hear  _ everything,  _ remember?”

 

“Oh good,” Adam wheezes, “and here I was sweating about our security clearances. Hey, how’d  _ you  _ get promoted, anyway?”

 

“You know that new ship they’re building? The  _ Atlas? _ ” Curtis sets him down and grins.  _ “Senior communications officer.  _ I’m on the bridge crew!”

 

“No shit!? Babe, that’s  _ awesome! _ ”

 

“You know what’s  _ really  _ awesome?” Curtis kisses the tip of Adam’s nose. “The MFE squadron is going to go with the  _ Atlas  _ when it ships out so… we’ll get to go run around in space  _ together.” _

 

“We’ve gotta see whose ass we need to kiss to get a cabin together, then.” Adam wraps his arms around Curtis and tucks his head under his chin. “Hey… how much  _ everything  _ did you hear?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I mean…”  _ Oof _ . Adam… isn’t sure how to say this without making Curtis worry about… well, about  _ them,  _ but… “Did you hear about a message Commander Holt had for me?”

 

There’s a long silence. “Don’t think I heard  _ that  _ part of everything.”

 

Adam sighs. Fuck it, they’re both working on alien tech stuff so their security clearances are probably close enough for Garrison work. 

 

He opens his mouth, not sure what’s going to come out of it.

 

“Keith is okay, and he was right,” he finally says. “Takashi’s alive. And he’s--he doesn’t know how but they fixed him. He’s okay.”

 

Curtis is quiet for a long time.

 

“That’s--” He snuggles against Adam’s shoulder and laughs softly. “That’s great!”

 

But there’s something in Curtis’ voice, something in the way Curtis is holding him that breaks Adam’s heart a little.

 

* * *

 

Adam wakes up at some wee hour of the morning and feels like something isn’t right.

 

It’s his back. It’s cold. Normally Curtis keeps it warm for him but… 

 

Oh,  _ shit. _

 

Fortunately, Adam has a pretty good idea where he is. There’s a roof access ladder right around the corner from their front door. It’s the kind that’s  _ supposed  _ to only be accessible to the maintenance people, but anyone who’s tall enough and can jump high enough and can do a few pull-ups can get up it. Adam can. So can Curtis.

 

Sure enough he’s sitting on the roof staring out at the stars.

 

“Hey.” Adam sits down next to him and lays his head on his shoulder. “You okay?”

 

“Yeah.” Curtis leans his head against Adam’s. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to run off on you. I couldn’t sleep. It’s just kind of--” he gestures vaguely, indicating something huge and overwhelming. “I can’t believe it.”

 

“Me either.” Adam shakes his head. “He was right. Keith was  _ right.  _ What the  _ fuck.” _

 

They’re both quiet for a while. 

 

“I guess…” Curtis starts. He stops. Adam hears him swallow. “I guess you’re… I’m happy for you, don’t get me wrong, I just…” He shrugs, and  _ oh God, _ Adam thinks,  _ does he really think--  _ “I guess… I guess you’re going to get back together, huh?”

 

Adam picks his head up off Curtis’ shoulder. “What!?  _ No!” _

 

“Really!?” Oh God, poor Curtis, he sounds genuinely surprised. “I just thought--I mean, you were going to get married--”

 

“Curtis…” Adam wraps both arms around Curtis and holds him tight. “Oh, sweetheart. No.  _ Absolutely fucking not. _ I’m thrilled that he’s alive and I’ll be glad to see him, but-- _ I left him. _ We broke up. And now I’m  _ yours. _ ” He kisses Curtis, long and slow and soft.  _ “I love you _ and I’m all yours now. For as long as you want to keep me.”

 

Curtis huffs out a warm sigh against the side of Adam’s head and snuggles down against his shoulder. Then he laughs, softly. “I’m just saying, I bet he looks  _ really  _ good in that Paladin armor or whatever...”

 

_ “Stop!” _ Adam gently swats Curtis on the ass, and they both laugh. “Honestly? He’ll probably be happy for us.”

 

* * *

 

Adam is a very,  _ very  _ busy man these days. Writing sim missions for a whole new piece of equipment, advising the engineers building that piece of equipment on how to make the pilots’ lives easier, training the cadets who are going to be flying the other four MFE fighters. He’s had to give up playing piano for the chorus and he hates that--with the Garrison gearing up for a possible war the extracurricular activities are more important than ever right now, especially for the junior cadets. They’re kids, after all, and they need some time to  _ be kids  _ even if it’s only an hour a week.

 

Curtis ends up having to drop out too, between his actual work in mission control and training on the  _ Atlas’  _ system, he’s got a full schedule. And he hates it even more, he loves singing.

 

But when the first MFE fighter rolls off the assembly line and Adam gets to be the first to fly it… God, he can’t even describe it. He’s never flown anything like this, anything this fast, anything this agile, anything that  _ responds  _ like this and the engineers think they might be able to cut the response time even  _ more!?  _ It already flies like the throttle and the stick are just there to give him something to put his hands on, like it’s responding to his thoughts. 

 

It’s still got enough charge left for the cadets to each get a turn once Adam reluctantly lands and even more reluctantly gets out (he isn’t entirely joking when he tells the ground crew they’re going to have to bring a pry bar and a crane and possibly a tranquilizer gun to get him out of this cockpit because he is in  _ love)  _ and  _ they  _ lose their shit over it. Even Kinkade, who doesn’t ever show much of a reaction to  _ anything,  _ is kind of emotional when he gets out.

 

There’s a sense that they’re all part of something historic here. It’s an amazing feeling. 

 

Adam wonders if this was how Takashi felt when he took off for Kerberos. 

 

He hopes it was.

 

* * *

 

Adam comes home feeling… well,  _ pumped  _ is a start, but it doesn’t even begin to describe how he feels right now. There might be some powerful bad guys out there but now Earth has a chance. They actually have a fucking  _ chance.  _ And he’s part of it. 

 

He’s practically vibrating in the driver’s seat of his car by the time he gets back to the apartment and he’s definitely going to need an outlet for this. 

 

When he walks in the door Curtis barely gets “hi” out before Adam is climbing him like a goddamn tree.

 

“So,” Curtis laughs when Adam finally lets his mouth go for two seconds, “good day, huh?”

 

Adam just wraps his arms around Curtis’ shoulders and his legs around Curtis’ waist and hangs on. “The  _ best.” _

 

“Mmm.” Curtis reaches down, gets two handfuls of Adam’s ass, and nips at his lower lip. “Bet we can make it better.” 

 

He carries Adam off to the bedroom, where they spend the rest of the night doing exactly that.

 

* * *

 

Adam takes his old jet up the next day. The F-97 Fury is the fastest, most advanced fighter the Garrison had up until now. 

 

Compared to the MFE-Ares, it handles like a grocery cart with one broken wheel. 

 

They’re eventually going to phase these out and replace them with MFE fighters. ...right?

 

Or at least upgrade them?

 

Of course they will. Sanda is stubborn, but she’s not an idiot. It might take some time. But surely they won’t fly these things against the Galra.

 

Right?

 

* * *

 

The plan was to build five MFE fighters. One for Adam, four for the cadets. 

 

But of course the  _ Atlas  _ is priority, and resources are starting to get spread a little thinner than anyone would like. By the time they get to the fifth MFE fighter there are apparently some corners being cut. Something goes wrong. 

 

The fifth fighter blows up on the flightline.

 

It was an unmanned startup test, thank God nobody was  _ in  _ that thing, but it’s a horrible mess and they’re lucky none of the engineers or ground crew were killed in the explosion. But the damage is done. There’s not enough left of the fifth fighter to salvage, and not enough resources to start over.

 

Which means they have one body too many.

 

_ Fuck.  _ How the fuck is Adam supposed to decide which one of these kids gets cut? They’re all amazing. Griffin is a natural leader and he seems to have outgrown his bully phase. Rizavi is absolutely fearless and she nails maneuvers some seasoned pilots still have trouble with. Leifsdottir is a brilliant analyst. Nothing gets past her. And Kinkade is a rock, the guy has nerves of steel,  _ nothing  _ shakes him.

 

He spends half the night on the couch with his head in Curtis’ lap, tying his brain in knots trying to figure this damn thing out.

 

He still doesn’t know who it’s going to be when he shows up for training flights the next morning. Until he realizes the cadets are acting kind of weird. Like they’re ashamed to make eye contact with him. And then he notices Iverson there.

 

None of the cadets are getting cut.

 

_ Adam  _ is.

 

* * *

 

“Ma’am, with all due respect,  _ what the actual fuck are you doing!?” _

 

“Commander Wolf,” Sanda says mildly, as if Adam had come in to discuss the fucking weather. “I didn’t hear you knock.”

 

“No, ma’am. That would be because I  _ didn’t.”  _ Sanda shoots him a glare that could peel paint off a truck at a hundred paces but Adam knows he isn’t going to see any real consequences for any of this. Sanda might be a stubborn asshole and Adam might have butted heads with her more than once before this, but she appreciates the fact that he tells her exactly what’s on his mind and doesn’t try to kiss her ass. “Would you mind explaining to me why the hell you saw fit to pull  _ me _ off the MFE squadron?”

 

“You’ll still be writing the simulator missions and advising the engineers. If you’re worried about losing your rank let me assure you I have  _ no _ intention of--”

 

“You really think that’s why I’m here? The  _ rank!?  _ Take the damn stripe back, I don’t give a shit.” Oh, she’ll  _ think  _ about it for sure, but… she won’t  And if she does… no, actually, Adam really, truly does not give a shit. “You’ve got  _ four cadets  _ flying the most advanced aircraft we’ve ever had, without adult supervision. I’m the best fighter pilot you have. I get having a hard time deciding which one to cut because they’re  _ all  _ brilliant and thinking about it kept  _ me  _ up half the damn night, but you don’t think it would have made more sense to pull one of the  _ cadets  _ instead of the actual  _ experienced pilot?” _

 

“I understand your concerns,” Sanda says, “but we need our most experienced pilots in our proven weapons systems right now.”

 

“Our proven--” Adam’s eye twitches. “Ma’am, in case you’ve forgotten--according to the data we have, our  _ proven weapons systems  _ are going to do precisely  _ fuckall  _ to the Galra. You’ll be sending us on a  _ suicide mission! _ ”

 

“I’m aware of that, Commander. Don’t worry. We’re going to upgrade your weapons.”

 

“Great.” Adam nods. “What kind of timeframe can you give me on that?”

 

The silence speaks volumes.

 

“I’ll get back to you,” Sanda finally says. “You saw yourself in, you can see yourself out.”

 

* * *

 

Of course Curtis has already heard that Adam got pulled off the MFE squadron, and when he gets home that night he doesn’t say a word until he’s swept Adam into a tight, warm hug.

 

“I’m sorry,” he finally says into the top of Adam’s head. “I know how much it meant to you.”

 

Adam isn’t sure Curtis truly understands what this really means.

 

He should tell Curtis about his conversation with Sanda, he thinks. Tell him it doesn’t bode well if Sanda wants their best pilots on their “proven weapons systems.” Tell him Sanda’s not going to send the MFE fighters out first if the shit hits the fan, she’s going to send  _ him,  _ and unless they get some better weapons on those jets  _ tout fucking suite _ he’s not going to come back. 

 

How is he supposed to look Curtis in the eye and tell him all of that, though? And what good would it do to put him through that when there’s got to be a fix for this whole Godawful situation, one he just hasn’t found yet?

 

Sooner or later, if the situation doesn’t improve, Adam will have to tell him.

 

But not now.

 

* * *

 

Adam calls Sanda the next day asking about that timetable. And the next. And the  _ next.  _

 

The answer is always the same:  _ I said I’ll get back to you, Commander.  _

 

* * *

 

This goes on for two fucking months. 

 

And then Sanda stops taking Adam’s calls.

 

So he marches right down to her office again. If the old battleaxe thinks she’s going to get off the hook  _ that  _ easily, she clearly has no idea who the fuck she’s dealing with. 

 

Her aide stops him before he can go into her office, something about a meeting.

 

He asks when she’ll be  _ out  _ of that meeting and can’t seem to get a straight answer.

 

Fine. He’ll try again tomorrow.

 

* * *

 

He tries again.

 

“I’m sorry, Commander. Admiral Sanda is on a conference call right now.”

 

* * *

 

And again, the day after that.

 

“Admiral Sanda is in a meeting right now.”

 

* * *

 

And  _ again,  _ the day after  _ that. _

 

“Sorry, Admiral Sanda is out of the office at the moment.”

 

Adam can hear her talking to someone behind the closed door of her office, but he leaves anyway.

 

He has the worst feeling he’s already gotten his timetable.

 

* * *

 

So now the regular fighter pilots, including the ones in Adam’s squadron, are starting to figure out that something isn’t right. Sanda pulled the best pilot they have off the MFE squadron, and she’s being the opposite of forthcoming about when or even  _ if  _ the regular fighters are going to have their weapons upgraded to shit that will work against the Galra. And the pilots in Adam’s squadron are starting to ask him questions he doesn’t have answers to.

 

A few of the pilots have put in their resignations. Adam doesn’t blame them. He’s thought about it himself. Because if the data is right, and Sanda’s stubborn ass sends a squadron of Furies with their standard loadout up against the Galra,  _ they’re not coming back. _

 

So Adam will just have to see what they can do with what they have.

 

Adam writes two new sim programs: Fury vs. one (1) Galra fighter, Fury vs. one (1) Galra warship.

 

The control run with the Fury’s standard loadout ends predictably: weapons have no effect. Mission failure, zero enemy casualties.

 

What could they do with what they had?

 

Divert power from noncritical systems to weapons. No effect.

 

What was the least-critical critical system? A pilot could learn to do without comm, instruments and HUD for the split seconds it would take to fire weapons, but that wouldn’t give him a lot of power. He tries it anyway. No effect.

 

How long could they cut life support? How long could the average human hold their breath? He tries it. No effect.

 

His phone buzzes in his pocket. It’s a text from Curtis:  _ coming home? _

 

_ In a little bit,  _ Adam sends back. It’s almost eight in the evening.

 

He tries shutting down and rerouting and reconfiguring to squeeze every precious bit of power out of the engine he can and feed it to weapons. Nothing works. Nothing.

 

So the standard loadout isn’t getting the job done. What else do they have? 

 

Heatseeking missiles can’t even find the fighter or warship. He tweaks the mission parameters to turn the fighter and warship into stationary sitting ducks. The missiles connect and do no damage whatsoever. EMP doesn’t work. Chaff and flares don’t throw their targeting off. Signal jamming doesn’t work. Actual goddamn  _ mini-nukes  _ don’t even get through the fucking shields.

 

All that’s left at this point is the kamikaze option.

 

Cut all systems except autopilot, route that power to propulsion, set course and ram the fucker. It’s utterly useless against a fighter, the little bastards are too fast. He tries it against a warship. 

 

No effect. 

 

What else is there?

 

If turning the whole goddamn jet into a human-powered guided missile doesn’t work,  _ what the fuck else is there!? _

 

The Galra have tech that’s still the stuff of sci-fi movies here on Earth. They have a ten thousand year head start. They have shields and cloaking devices and hitting them with the biggest Earth-tech-based guns the Garrison has is as effective as shining a fucking laser pointer on them. They could show up at any moment. And Sanda is dragging her fucking feet on getting anything but the MFEs and the  _ Atlas  _ ready to fight them--and she’s barely doing that.

 

Adam’s phone buzzes again.  _ Dammit, Curtis, I just said-- _

 

He looks at the time and feels his blood run cold. It’s after midnight.

 

* * *

 

“I’m sorry,” Adam whispers, sliding into bed and snuggling up against Curtis. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I lost track of the time--”

 

Curtis, bless him, just wraps an arm around his shoulders and pulls him close. “I know,” he whispers back. “How’s it coming?”

 

Adam just shakes his head.

 

“Get some rest.” Curtis rubs his back. “Then try again with fresh eyes. You’ll figure something out.”

 

Adam shakes his head again. “I’ve tried everything.”

 

Curtis just holds him close. “It’ll be okay.”

 

Adam isn’t so sure.

 

Curtis probably still thinks Sanda will actually send the MFE fighters out first, and Adam still doesn’t have the heart to tell him otherwise.

 

* * *

 

He tries again the next day. He calls an engineer to the sim bay to see what can be tweaked and what can’t.

 

Nothing works.

 

Just for shits and giggles, Adam loads out a Fury with an MFE gun. The Fury’s engine can’t generate enough power to fire it.

 

They’re going to need better weapons. Better weapons will require better engines. Better engines will probably require better airframes.

 

All of which confirms what Adam suspected from the moment Sanda stopped taking his fucking calls.

 

There won’t be any upgrades.

 

If they get sent out, they’re getting sent out with what they have.

 

If they get sent out, they’re not coming back.

 

Suddenly, Adam thinks he’s starting to understand how Takashi felt when he had to give up his coffee. He can feel a clock ticking over his head. He can’t see what it says. All he knows is, it’s counting down and he can’t stop it.

 

* * *

 

And then a miracle happens. 

 

Well, not so much a miracle  _ per se  _ as the Holts being so spectacularly  _ done _ with Sanda’s bullshit that they’re willing to risk the consequences of going public, but whatever.

 

Their video goes out on every channel, worldwide. And things start happening  _ very  _ fast once that video drops.

 

Offers of help start pouring in from all over the world--manpower and materials and everything they could possibly need (except for whatever the fuck it is the  _ Atlas  _ needs to power it but again, they’ll cross that bridge when they come to it).

 

Sanda is… less than pleased that Sam and Colleen told literally the entire world about the situation and there are vague threats but what’s she going to do about it? What the fuck is she really going to do? Especially since it  _ worked.  _ She knows as well as anyone that if the Garrison waited on  _ her  _ stubborn ass to do anything, they’d all still be standing around waiting for permission to breathe when the Galra showed up.

 

Adam feels something uncoil inside him when he finds out. This is it. They’re saved. With all this support, with all these resources, they  _ have  _ to build that fifth MFE fighter. Maybe even a second squadron. At least they’ll be able to find a way to refit the Furies with better engines and better weapons.

 

Right?

 

They will… won’t they?

 

* * *

 

Months pass.

 

Work on the  _ Atlas  _ is going much,  _ much  _ faster. 

 

But there are still no plans for that fifth MFE fighter. No plans for a second MFE squadron. And no plans to upgrade the Furies.

 

Sanda still won’t take Adam’s calls, and her aide still feeds him bullshit.

 

This can’t be happening.

 

This  _ cannot be happening.  _

 

He’s been going back to the sim bay every few days and desperately trying again to squeeze enough power into a Fury’s weapons to make even the smallest fucking dent in a Galra ship.

 

He comes up with the same results every time. Mission failure. Zero enemy casualties. No damage to enemy craft.

 

He came up with the same results today.

 

He trudges back to his office in a numb haze.

 

This  _ is _ happening and there’s nothing he can do about it.

 

But that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t keep trying.

 

He goes over the data with a fine-tooth comb looking for anything,  _ anything  _ he can use, any weakness he can exploit, and sees nothing.

 

So he goes over it again.

 

And  _ again.  _

 

His phone buzzes in his pocket. Adam thinks it’s somewhere around seven in the evening and there’s some wiggle room, but he takes it out and looks anyway.

 

...how the fuck did it get to be  _ half past ten? _

 

* * *

 

At least this time he gets home before Curtis goes to bed, but he still missed dinner and he still feels horrible.

 

How many times did he chew on Takashi’s ass for putting his job before their relationship? And now  _ he’s  _ doing it. And he feels fucking  _ horrible. _

 

Curtis doesn’t scold him, doesn’t lecture him. He just settles into bed behind Adam and wraps an arm around his waist.

 

“I’m sorry,” Adam says, and Curtis kisses the back of his neck.

 

“It’s okay. I know you’ve got a lot going on.” Curtis snuggles him close. “Just… take care of yourself, okay?”

 

Somehow, that’s worse than a lecture.

 

* * *

 

Adam promises to make dinner the next evening, and with the help of three separate alarms to remind him he knocks off a little early and goes to the store. Onions, potatoes, carrots, stew meat--they already have rice and spices and stuff.

 

He also buys a fresh memory card.

 

He comes home, sets the bag on the counter and lets Curtis hug him. “Help me with dinner?” Adam asks, and Curtis kisses his forehead.

 

“Sure. What are we having?”

 

“Curry rice.” Adam measures a few tablespoons of butter and drops it into a saucepan, adds flour once it’s melted. “Keep an eye on that.”

 

Curtis knows what a roux is, and he tends to the saucepan while Adam chops veggies (and this way, if he happens to sniffle or wipe his eyes, he can write it off as onion-related). But he clearly knows something’s up. They’ve only had curry rice a few times, finding the packaged stuff at the store was always a crapshoot and making the roux from scratch was kind of a pain in the ass. But Adam  _ had _ to learn to make it from scratch for Takashi because when the packaged stuff  _ did  _ show up in the store it was the spicy kind, and as it turns out, homemade really was better…

 

Yeah, there  _ is  _ a reason why Adam is showing Curtis how to do this.

 

See… he has an idea. 

 

It came to him while he was sitting in his office going over the latest results from the simulator for the hundredth time, trying desperately to figure out a way to use Earth technology against aliens with a ten thousand year head start and coming up empty and knowing that quitting is not an option because… what if he  _ can  _ figure it out? What if he’s the one that actually cracks this? And he  _ doesn’t  _ crack it, because he’s tendered his resignation and he and Curtis have fucked off to Calgary or Houston? What if  _ nobody  _ cracks it and the Galra hit?

 

Adam knows he wouldn’t be able to live with himself. Well, assuming he survived whatever happened after the Galra came, there’s probably no place on Earth remote enough to get through unscathed. So he’s decided not to resign. So has Curtis. They’re both in this to the bitter end.

 

But the simple fact of the matter is: if the shit hits the fan, Curtis will either be in mission control or on the bridge of the  _ Atlas  _ and Adam will be flying a piece of Earth technology with Earth-technology weapons into battle against aliens with a ten thousand year head start. 

 

The even simpler fact of the matter is: Curtis is hell of a lot more likely to still be alive if and when Takashi makes it back to Earth.

 

So. Adam got an idea. He actually has Takashi to thank for it. He did it first, after all. Adam is just taking it a little farther. Far enough that if it works out the way he hopes it does… 

 

Well, if it works out the way he hopes it does, Curtis is going to need to know how to make Japanese comfort food.

 

The next time he cooks he shows Curtis how to make oyakodon. The next time after that is miso soup and TKG, not that there’s much instruction necessary for either of those. But by then Curtis  _ has  _ to know something is up. 

 

And Curtis  _ does  _ ask what’s up with all the Japanese comfort food and the cooking lessons that go along with it. Adam shrugs it off, offers up some line about how he’s just been craving it lately and he thought Curtis might want to know how to make it for him, that’s all. Curtis is probably not buying it, but at least he’s not pressing the issue further.

 

Adam makes a mental note to put all the recipes on the memory card. Just in case.

 

* * *

 

He has a proper will. He’s had one since he started flying, because you never know when something’s going to go pear-shaped. He updated it the day Sanda stopped taking his calls. But there’s one more loose end he needs to tie up, and it’s not something that can go in a will.

 

Adam knocks on Kinkade’s door, asks if he can borrow a camera, promises to return it first thing the next morning.

 

He locks himself in his office after his shift is over and and texts Curtis to let him know he’ll be a little late getting home.

 

He sets up the camera with that fresh memory card and and tells himself very firmly that he can cry all he wants once he’s done recording but  _ he has to get through this. _

 

He hits “record” and takes a deep breath.

 

“Takashi… Curtis… if you’re both watching this, that means two things…”

 

He manages to get through the whole thing without crying, although he has a couple close calls. 

 

He stops the camera, takes the card out, puts it back in its case, seals it up with tape, and labels it.

 

_ Then  _ he cries.

 

* * *

 

Any way to boost the engine? None Adam hasn’t already tried.

 

Can they add some kind of auxiliary power unit just to run the weapons? No.

 

All right, what about those new anti-aircraft guns? Can they apply any of that to--no, again, not without adding an APU which they--

 

Wait.

 

On the warships… just before the ion cannon fires, there’s an opening in the shield right in front of it. Adam can’t believe he missed it before. Well, no, he  _ can  _ because the opening is exactly the width of the ion cannon beam and the window of opportunity is so tight--less than half a second before the cannon fires and vaporizes anything it catches--that he probably  _ did  _ see it and mistook it for a graphics glitch.

 

An opening in the shield, right before the cannon fires.

 

Adam freezes the simulation when it happens and tries firing on the warship through the opening.

 

_ It actually does damage.  _ Not nearly enough damage, but a non-zero amount.

 

He tries ramming the cannon. 

 

A direct hit by a Fury with a minimum seventy-five percent charge  _ disables the fucking cannon!  _ It doesn’t completely destroy it, but it does render the damn thing inoperable at least for a little while. It can buy some time. It’s  _ something,  _ goddammit.

 

All right. He’s onto something. But  _ fuck-- _ less than half a second of an opening, he can’t run the power down past three-quarters of the proverbial tank beforehand--and oh, friendly reminder,  _ this is a kamikaze maneuver and the pilot will not survive it. _

 

It’s a last-ditch option with a nightmarishly low chance of success. Even firing on the warship through the opening in the shield is a crapshoot, because lining up that shot carries a high risk of the pilot being almost directly in the cannon’s line of fire.

 

Still, it’s more than he had. Adam just hopes they have enough time for him to figure out how to make it work. 

 

For now he decides to concentrate on trying to get timing and positioning down, trying to fire through the opening, trying to offer his squadron something other than a kamikaze tactic with a one in a million chance of working. 

 

It’s almost impossible. There is  _ zero  _ margin of error on this maneuver. But “almost impossible” isn’t impossible. With practice, he can land one shot in fifty on the ship through the opening in the shield without taking a hit from the ion cannon. With more practice, he can land one in thirty.

 

He feels his phone buzz in his pocket. Right. Curtis was making dinner tonight, wasn’t he? Probably just letting him know it’s ready. Well, he’s got time to run this mission two or three more times before he needs to head home.

 

Maybe five more.

 

Maybe ten more.

 

Maybe…how many now?

 

He’s lost track, and his stomach is starting to protest. All right, all right. 

 

Adam pulls his phone out of his pocket, with every intention of letting Curtis know he’s on the way home, but then he sees the text he missed.

 

_ Going to bed. Dinner’s in the fridge. Don’t work all night. I love you. _

 

What the--

 

Oh  _ fuck.  _ It’s two in the morning.

 

* * *

 

Adam tries to sneak into bed without waking Curtis up, but he’s too tired and too clumsy. Curtis makes a little sleepy noise and wraps an arm around his waist.

 

“I’m sorry,” Adam whispers, and Curtis kisses the back of his neck. “I found a way through the shield on the warships, it’s--it’s almost impossible to make the shot and it doesn’t do much damage but it actually  _ does some fucking damage--” _

 

“Mm?” Curtis snuggles him close. “‘S great!”

 

“It’s just--ugh, I need to get the rest of the pilots into the sims  _ yesterday  _ and get them working on--” Then Adam remembers what time it is. “Ah, shit… I’m sorry, baby. Go back to sleep, I’ll--I’ll try not to keep you awake--”

 

Curtis makes another sleepy noise and nudges Adam’s shoulder. “Roll over.”

 

“...huh?”

 

“On your tummy.” 

 

Adam does, and he feels Curtis sit up and then kneel astride his butt. He leans over and goes into the nightstand drawer for something, and comes out with a bottle.

 

“Aw…” Adam sighs. “Curtis… you don’t have to--it’s late, it’s okay, go back to sleep--” But then he feels Curtis’ hands, strong and warm and slippery with lightly scented oil, on either side of his spine. “Mmm. You… you really don’t have to-- _nnnngh_.” He thinks he hears Curtis laugh, soft and breathy and a little drowsy, and he feels Curtis’ fingers splaying out over his back and the heels of his hands pressing the knots out of the tight muscles along Adam’s spine as they slide up towards his shoulders. God, Curtis gives the best backrubs, and as bad as Adam feels about him getting up to do this at whatever o’clock in the morning… it’s just what he needs to quiet his mind and relax his body so he can maybe sleep a little tonight. 

 

“I’m sorry,” Adam says again, as Curtis’ hands curl over his shoulders and squeeze the tension out of them. “God. I--I used to get on Takashi’s ass for working too much and now...”

 

“Yeah, but... “ Curtis slides his hands back down to the small of Adam’s back. “It’s… not really the same thing, though.” He leans down and kisses the back of Adam’s head. “I hate seeing you push yourself so hard but I know this isn’t about your ego or your pride or you having something to prove, it’s… it’s something important. It’ll be great if you figure out something that works, that way you can back the MFEs up if they need it.”

 

Oh God. 

 

Curtis still thinks… he actually still thinks Sanda’s going to send the MFE fighters out first. 

 

Which is what any decent person with two brain cells to rub together would do, granted, and Curtis does tend to assume that most people are decent and have two brain cells to rub together, even  _ Sanda,  _ but… 

 

Adam opens his mouth to say… what? What  _ can  _ he say? How the fuck is he supposed to tell Curtis  _ he’s  _ going to be on the front line if the shit hits the fan?

 

So he doesn’t say anything. He just shuts his eyes and tries to focus on Curtis’ hands kneading the knots out of his muscles.

 

He makes a mental note to try and bail out of work in time to return the favor tomorrow night.

 

* * *

 

One of the younger pilots pops the hatch on his simulator and stomps out in frustrated tears. “This is  _ impossible!”  _ he wails, and nobody rolls their eyes, nobody scoffs, nobody contradicts him. “I’ve been running this mission  _ all day!  _ You know how many shots I’ve landed on the warship?  _ Two! _ And that’s without the damn  _ fighters!”  _

 

Most of the pilots haven’t done much better. Even the most seasoned pilots in Adam’s squadron have only made the shot without getting hit once or twice all day. Adam himself has only landed it three times, and he’s been practicing since last night.

 

And as that one frustrated pilot so helpfully pointed out… they’ve been going against one lone warship. They haven’t even added the Galra fighters into the mix.

 

“It’s  _ almost  _ impossible,” Adam says as gently as he can but man, he feels the guy’s pain. “Almost impossible isn’t impossible. If we get sent out there with what we have, this is the only chance we’ve got. It’s not much, but at least we have a chance to do some damage instead of just--” He shakes his head and pats the frustrated pilot on the shoulder. It’s not going to help anyone to remind them they’re going to be cannon fodder. “It’s okay. Go take a break.”

 

The young pilot trudges off to the break room. Adam checks the time. He should stay, he thinks. A simulator just opened up for a few minutes, after all, he could get a  _ little  _ more practice in…

 

No. Not tonight. There’s something important he needs to do, and he needs to do it  _ now. _

 

* * *

 

“Okay,” Adam says, taking both of Curtis’ hands in his and sitting him down on the couch, “this is not something you’re going to like talking about and believe me, I don’t like talking about it either but we have to. If something happens to me--”

 

“Adam--” Curtis shakes his head. “No. I can’t-- _ no.” _

 

_ “We have to.”  _ Adam squeezes Curtis’ hands, leans forward to touch their foreheads together. “Look… we may not even need this. I’m just… I’m just covering the bases.” He lets go of one hand, reaches into his pocket, and presses something small and plastic into Curtis’ hand--a little plastic case, sealed with packing tape. “I need you to keep this with you. If Takashi makes it back, and I’m… I’m gone--” Curtis starts to protest. Adam gently shushes him. “I want you to give it to him, and--this is very important-- _ I want you to watch it with him. _ Okay? Can you do that for me?”

 

Curtis opens his mouth to say something. Instead, he closes it and looks down at the little case in his hand. “What is it?”

 

“It’s a message for both of you.” Adam curls his hand back around Curtis’ hand, around the little case. “Just promise me. If he comes back and I’m gone, promise me you’ll watch it with him.”

 

Curtis keeps staring down at Adam’s hand wrapped around his, closing it tight around the case. “I will. I promise,” he finally says. “God, I don’t even want to think about it.”

 

“I know, baby.” Adam drops his head onto Curtis’ shoulder and holds him tight. “I know. I don’t either.”

 

They cling to one another for a while, and then Curtis pulls back and kisses him. Adam can feel Curtis trembling against him--or is it the other way around? Or both? He’s not sure. It doesn’t matter. Adam leans his head back and offers his throat, and Curtis accepts it. 

 

“Make love to me?” Adam whispers, and it’s barely out of his mouth before Curtis is laying him back on the couch and taking his glasses off him. 

 

Curtis sets Adam’s glasses and that little plastic case on the coffee table, unbuckles Adam’s uniform belt and unzips his jacket and peels it open, pushes it back over his shoulders and runs his hands over the skin beneath it. Adam groans and arches his back, pushing his chest up into Curtis’ hands.

 

It reminds Adam of the first time they did this--Curtis’ gentle hands caressing him, lifting him off the couch to get his jacket completely out of the way, easing him down onto the floor. 

 

Adam wants this to last. 

 

He’s trying not to think about it right now, but he’s all too aware that every time they do this might be the last, and he wants to burn every touch and taste and sound and scent deep enough into his memory to stay with him forever.

 

But even now, Adam can’t help but laugh a little, like he does every time they do this in the living room. All the friends they’ve had over, and none of them had any idea what they were literally sitting on. Curtis reaches under the middle couch cushion and comes out with a clean towel, then a few interesting textured condoms and a bottle of lube. They’ve been together long enough that the “safe” part isn’t something they need to worry about anymore if they ever really did, but Adam still likes the “fun” part and Curtis still likes watching Adam enjoy it. Curtis tosses the towel onto the couch for now and piles the other items up next to Adam’s hip. 

 

They get each other out of the rest of their clothes, and Adam decides to take some slightly devious measures to make sure this isn’t over too fast. Early in their relationship Curtis wouldn’t even let Adam touch his cock until he’d gotten Adam off at least once, but now Adam has learned all the best ways to persuade him. They involve soft kisses and light, teasing touches in just the right spots--his ears, the hollow of his throat, the insides of his wrists and elbows, the ticklish spot just below his rib cage. 

 

When Adam lets his fingertips follow the trail of dark hair that starts just below Curtis’ navel all the way down, Curtis doesn’t protest. He doesn’t protest when Adam’s lips follow the same path, either.

 

He sure doesn’t protest when Adam takes him in. He makes  _ some  _ kind of a noise, but it’s definitely not a protest.

 

It doesn’t take long. Adam doesn’t intend for it to. It’s just a stalling tactic. He’s not in a hurry to get to the main course, and he figures the best way to stall is to make it necessary for Curtis to take a few minutes to recover. As stalling tactics go, it’s a pretty enjoyable one, and when Curtis flops back onto the carpet gasping, Adam crawls up to cuddle in against his side.

 

Of course there’s a very real danger of one or both of them falling asleep like this, so Adam keeps them both awake with a gentle reminder that they’re not finished yet--he grinds against Curtis’ hip, slow and light at first, but the warmth of Curtis’ skin against his is too much to resist for long. It’s too much for Curtis to resist, too. He pushes up on one elbow, gently rolls Adam over onto his back, and kisses him slow and deep. 

 

He pushes the rest of the way up and lets his hands wander, caressing every inch of Adam’s bare skin--except, of course, for the parts he wants touched the most. Adam whines low in his throat, but he doesn’t try to force the issue, doesn’t try to rush Curtis, just tries his best to relax into the soft touches.

 

Adam wonders if Curtis might be trying to commit every inch of him to  _ his  _ memory too, and decides it’s probably best to not think much about that either.

 

It’s almost too much when Curtis finally does brush the pad of his thumb up along the underside of Adam’s cock, as if all that slow caressing has been building up an electrical charge in it and that one light touch threatens to release it. Adam opens his eyes and sees Curtis up there giving him one of those little impish smiles, because of course Curtis knows exactly what all of this is doing to him. 

 

Curtis doesn’t go for one of the condoms, not yet, but he does pick up that bottle and squirt a little bit of lube into his hand. He rubs his palms together to take the chill out of the stuff--and to get it on  _ both  _ his hands. One wraps tight around Adam’s cock, and one slippery finger presses into him, and Adam bites his lip so hard he’ll still have the marks tomorrow. Even the first time they did this, it didn’t take Curtis long to figure out just the right speed and depth and angle. Adam wonders for a second if maybe he should have made that vague comment on the video about how ridiculously  _ compatible  _ they would be in bed after all… he thought about it, almost said it, but then he figured that would probably be a little too much.

 

Adam pulls his thoughts away from the future and plants them back into the present. It’s harder this time. But Curtis adds a second finger and hits him just right, twists his other hand on the upstroke just  _ so,  _ and that snaps him back to the here-and-now. He tries to hold back, tries to keep his hips still and draw this out as long as he can, but in the end the things Curtis is doing with his hands and the gently encouraging noises he’s making prove too much to resist. When Adam comes he hears Curtis moan too, as if his orgasm is somehow passing into Curtis through the contact between his hands and Adam’s body, and that just pushes him farther.

 

While he’s catching his breath Adam looks up and sees Curtis going for one of the condoms and laughs a little. Well,  _ that  _ got him ready in a hurry, didn’t it?

 

Curtis gets himself prepped, and as he always does, he treats Adam to a little show in the process. Adam loves watching Curtis touch himself almost as much as he loves Curtis touching  _ him.  _ Watching this gentle cinnamon roll of a man who hardly ever says so much as “hell” teasing himself rock-hard and thrusting into a handful of slippery latex and hearing the noises he makes while he’s doing it--the pure raw intimacy of knowing he’s the only person who gets to see Curtis like this is a hell of a drug. 

 

When he’s ready, Curtis runs his hands up Adam’s legs, from his ankles all the way up to the insides of his thighs, and that’s all the cue Adam needs. He hooks his knees over Curtis’ shoulders and groans softly as Curtis eases into him.

 

“Go slow,” Adam whispers, and he feels Curtis shiver. “Make it last.”

 

And Curtis does. He leans over Adam, braces his hands just behind Adam’s shoulders and bears his weight on them, and rolls his hips forward to set up a gentle, easy rhythm. It’s exactly what Adam wants, what he needs. It feels like he’s floating, like their bodies fit seamlessly together, like the two of them are the whole of the universe. 

 

Adam is so lost in the rhythm that his own imminent climax catches him off-guard at first, and when Curtis’ hand closes over the head of his cock it feels like the last piece of a puzzle dropping into place. He throws his head back and he’s not sure which of them is making all the noise, but it doesn’t matter. He tries to relax into it as best he can, tries to keep it slow and easy, but the warmth of Curtis’ stroking hand and the noises he’s making are too much to resist for long. Through the white-out fog of his orgasm Adam can feel Curtis shuddering against him and inside him, can feel the fingers that aren’t stroking him clutching at his thigh, can hear Curtis moaning his name over and over.

 

When it runs its course Curtis leans back, and Adam hisses in a soft breath as he slides free. Curtis grabs the towel off the couch and cleans them both up with it. Then he reaches for Adam and pulls him into his lap.

 

Adam wraps his arms tight around Curtis’ shoulders and snuggles his face into the side of Curtis’ neck, breathes in the scent of his aftershave, faint in the late evening, tastes a hint of salt and feels goosebumps under his lips as he lays a trail of soft kisses down Curtis’ neck. Curtis holds him tight, one hand splayed out between Adam’s shoulder blades and the other at the small of his back

 

“I love you,” Curtis whispers into the side of Adam’s head. “I love you so much.”

 

Adam clings to Curtis, arms and legs tight around him, and once again tells himself firmly that he can cry all he wants later. “Love you too,” he whispers back.

 

He wishes this could last forever. Of course, it can’t. Nothing can.

 

He’ll settle for all night.

 

* * *

 

Back at it again. Adam and two of the more experienced pilots have graduated to attacking the warship with a small formation of fighters in the mix and it’s like starting all over again. It’s hard enough to line up that shot when it’s just the warship--adding three fast, agile, heavily armed little bastards into the equation turns everything on its ear.

 

They just need to practice. If they can practice enough, they can do this.

 

The problem is, there are too many pilots and not enough simulators and not enough hours in the day.

 

And, as it turns out, not nearly enough days left.

 

* * *

 

Adam knows from the second he hears the alarm. 

 

He hopes it’s a drill. But deep down in the pit of his stomach… he knows it isn’t. He knows they’re here. 

 

Fucking  _ hell,  _ there are so many of them. At least fifty warships. Hundreds, maybe  _ thousands _ of fighters.

 

And the best of Adam’s pilots--himself included--have only gone against a single warship and a small formation of fighters in the simulator.

 

He’s surprised--no,  _ shocked-- _ to see the particle barrier go up. Shocked, and relieved. Even more of both when it actually holds under the warships’ fire. Mostly, he’s relieved because it likely means they’re going to send the MFE fighters out first after all. If Sanda ordered the particle barrier raised, then she  _ is _ willing to use the new shit. She  _ has  _ to be willing to use the new shit now that  she’s seen that it actually works.

 

But then Adam hears Iverson’s voice over the PA… ordering  _ his squadron  _ to scramble.

 

No.  _ No! _ God,  _ no, _ this can’t be happening! What the fuck is Sanda doing?  _ Why is Iverson going along with it!? _

 

He takes out his phone and sends Curtis a text. He knows Curtis is on duty right now, and with the shit hitting the fan who knows when he’ll get a break and the longer it takes him to get to it the more it’s going to hurt when he sees it but… Adam needs to do this. 

 

_ I love you. Remember what you promised me. _

 

Outwardly, he tries to be the leader his squadron needs him to be, reminds them what they’ve been practicing, tries to project some degree of calm confidence despite the near-certainty that they won’t see the end of this day, but inside… he feels cold and numb and a little sick. 

 

Adam doesn’t know who he feels worse for. Takashi, coming home from the other end of the universe, still hoping to see him despite everything that went wrong. Or Curtis, at his console in mission control right now, about to watch this happen.

 

They’ll be ordered to fall back. When this goes to shit, surely Iverson will have them return to base. They’ll scramble the MFE fighters. They’ve got those new anti-aircraft guns. As soon as they see the Furies’ weapons don’t work, or only work a little and only if they manage to fire through that tiny opening with a half-second window of opportunity… Iverson will have them fall back. He’s an asshole, but he’s not heartless. He won’t let them die out here. He  _ can’t. _

 

But then Adam sees half his squadron vaporized in the space of a few short seconds and doesn’t hear Iverson order them back and doesn’t see the MFE fighters and realizes  _ they’re not even using the fucking anti-aircraft guns,  _ they’re just plinking at the warships with the plain old Earth shit… and he knows.

 

He knows it’s too late.

 

Even if they tried to fall back now, they’re outnumbered, outgunned, and surrounded. All they can do is buy as much time as they can. He’s afraid that won’t be much. His squadron is down to two.

 

And then it’s down to one. 

 

And now Adam can clearly see the time on that countdown clock he’s felt hovering over his head for the last few months. It’s down to seconds.

 

He wishes he’d spent more time working on the ramming maneuver in the simulator, instead of trying to fire on the cannon. It’s a one in a million chance and whether he hits or not, he’s not coming back.

 

But he has to try it. There’s nothing else he can do.

 

This isn’t the life Adam imagined for himself when he was younger. 

 

It isn’t the life he imagined even a few short years ago. 

 

It sure as hell isn’t the way he imagined he’d die.

 

* * *

 

It’s their last night on Earth. 

 

Shiro wants to believe that means “last night for who knows how long, after which we’ll all come home safe” but, well… this is a war, after all, and there’s no guarantee.

 

Which is why he wants his crew to spend this time with the people they love.

 

He’s surprised to see Keith and his wolf at the wall, though on second thought he really shouldn’t be. Adam was part of his family too and they had their problems but at the end of the day, Keith still loves him, still appreciates everything he tried to do, still misses him.

 

“Hey,” Shiro says, one hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Mind if I join you?”

 

“Hey,” Keith replies, and he scoots over a little to give Shiro room to brush his fingertips over Adam’s picture. The wolf sits down on Shiro’s feet and leans against his legs like a ridiculously overgrown kitten. “We were about to head out to the cemetery and go see Pop but…” He gestures at Adam’s plaque and sighs. “I’ve… I dunno. I was thinking about him a lot on the way back, and… I guess it hasn’t really sunk in yet.”

 

Shiro nods. It hasn’t really sunk in for him yet, either. “Yeah. I keep waiting for him to come stomping into a briefing or something to yell at Iverson for sending him out like that and then yell at  _ me  _ for not getting back sooner--”

 

Keith laughs softly and shakes his head. “And then yell at  _ me  _ for being an ass when he was just trying to help… and then he’d hug us. Except Iverson. He’d tell Iverson to go fuck himself.”

 

_ “Language,”  _ Shiro scolds gently, and they both laugh because they both know he doesn’t really mean it. And, after all, they both know where Keith learned that word. Adam denied it, because of course he did, but… they both know.

 

Keith looks up then, off to the side, and motions to his wolf. The wolf stands up. “We should probably go,” he says. “See you tomorrow.”

 

Shiro looks up, in the direction Keith just looked. He sees Curtis, of all people, coming their way. As Keith passes him, they exchange a little smile and nod.

 

“Sir,” Curtis says by way of a greeting, and Shiro twitches a little. God, he’s been on a first name basis with the Paladins and  _ an actual princess _ for so long he can’t get used to all these people calling him  _ sir  _ and  _ captain  _ all the time. He certainly can’t get used to his friends doing it.

 

“Curtis…” Shiro laughs softly, shaking his head. “How long have we known each other? You don’t have to ‘sir’ me.”

 

“I do on the bridge.”

 

“We’re not on the bridge right now. And you actually… don’t? Half the bridge crew doesn’t.” He scoots over a little--Curtis was Adam’s friend, after all, and he’s probably here to pay his respects too.

 

...or was he _just_ Adam’s friend? 

 

It’s hard to tell, but the way Curtis reaches out and brushes his fingertips over Adam’s picture… well, it looks a lot like the way Shiro just did it, and… 

 

“Curtis...” Shiro can’t help cracking just a little bit of a smile. “You and Adam… were you…?”

 

Curtis just nods and doesn’t look him in the eye. 

 

“How long?”

 

“Uh… a little over a year.” Curtis swallows hard. “We were living together and… I mean, we never got around to talking about actually getting married but…” 

 

“You were still together when he--oh God. Curtis, I-I’m sorry.” He pats Curtis on the shoulder and feels him relax a little. “I’m so sorry. I’m glad you were there for him, though. I know you treated him right.” 

 

Curtis opens his mouth to say something, but just nods and returns that pat on the shoulder. Shiro thinks maybe he’ll leave it at that, go back to his quarters and give Curtis some privacy, but… Curtis still looks like he’s trying to work up the courage to say something.

 

In the end, he doesn’t say it. He just reaches into his pocket and hands Shiro something. 

 

It’s a little plastic case, sealed up with packing tape that’s a little worn on the corners, and labeled  _ contingency plan _ in Adam’s neat handwriting. And Shiro feels his throat tighten and his eyes sting because he has a pretty good idea what this is. Adam got the idea from  _ him,  _ after all.

 

“He wanted me to give that to you,” Curtis says, still not quite looking Shiro in the eye. “And he, uh… he wanted me to watch it with you.”

 

Okay. That… that’s an unexpected twist. Shiro frowns at the little case and picks enough of the tape loose with his fingernail to get it open. Inside, there’s a memory card. “Did he tell you what it was?”

 

Curtis shakes his head. “He just said it was a message for both of us.”

 

Shiro thinks about this for a minute. 

 

“Well,” he finally says, tucking the little case into his pocket, “I guess we should go watch it, then.”

 

“Wh-- _ now?” _

 

“Might as well.” Shiro says. 

 

* * *

 

He leads Curtis to his quarters, wishes he had some coffee or a soda or  _ anything  _ to offer him. Curtis sits down on one end of the couch, and Shiro plugs the memory card into the TV and sits on the other. 

 

There’s a folder named  _ recipes  _ and a video file named  _ watch this. _

 

_ Shit. _

 

If that’s actually going to be a video of Adam… if it’s really what Shiro thinks it is… he’s really not sure he’s up to this right now. But Adam  _ did _ want Curtis to watch it with him, and Shiro isn’t sure when--or  _ if-- _ they’ll get another chance. 

 

He has a feeling they’re going to need some tissues, so he grabs the whole damn box off the counter and plops it in the middle of the couch and sits back down. Curtis grabs three right off the bat and, well… Shiro figures there’s no point in pretending he won’t need a few himself.

 

He gets the weirdest impulse to reach over and hold Curtis’ hand. He almost hopes Curtis pulls it back or laughs it off or something, but he doesn’t, he just holds on tight. 

 

Shiro picks up the remote with his free hand and hits “play.”

 

* * *

 

_ Takashi… Curtis... if you’re both watching this, that means two things.  _

 

_ Number one, Curtis did exactly what I asked him to do. Thanks, baby. I know this had to be hard for you.  _

 

_ And number two… well… ever since I got pulled off the MFE squadron I’ve been on Sanda’s ass about getting the weapons on the regular fighters upgraded and, well… she stopped taking my calls, and every time I try to nag her in person I get told she’s in a meeting or something. So... I guess that’s my answer. We’re not getting upgraded. The weapons we’ve got are going to do  _ nothing.  _ I’ve tested… I’ve run everything we could possibly do with what we have through the simulator and so far nothing fucking works _ . Nothing.  _ I… I’m not giving up, if there’s anything we can do then goddammit, I’m going to find it but right now… if the Galra hit us, and she doesn’t want to send out the MFE fighters first which we all know she won’t, we get sent out instead and… how am I supposed to tell my squadron we’re going to be cannon fodder? God, Curtis, how the fuck am I supposed to tell  _ you...

 

_...so number two, it means that happened.  _

 

_ I… I think I understand now, Takashi… why you were so dead set on flying that damn mission… it feels like there’s a countdown timer over my head and it’s running down too fast and there’s  _ nothing I can do about it  _ and I just--fuck. God. I’m sorry. This isn’t about-- _

 

_ I… I’m sorry. Takashi--I said… I said a lot of horrible things to you before you left and I’m sorry I won’t be here to apologize to you in person when you get back. Curtis, I’m sorry about all the late nights I’ve been working, and I’m sorry I can’t tell you just how bad it really is and--oh God, I hope they hit at night and it didn’t happen on your shift…  _

 

_...I should, uh… probably get to the point. _

 

_ The point is… I love both of you. I want you both to be happy. And… I think… I think you could make each other happy. I think you’d be good for each other.  There’s… there’s nobody else in the world I’d trust more with either of you. So... _

 

_ Takashi… I know you said you’re okay so I guess space doctors figured out how to fix you or you got a new body or some kind of miracle happened but… you need to tell Curtis what your status is. And don’t even  _ think  _ about trying to bullshit him. He knows how sick you were. I told him everything. _

 

_ Curtis… make sure you show Takashi where you keep the Epi-pen and how to use it and everything. It probably won’t come up on the  _ Atlas,  _ unless you run into… I don’t know, space bees? That’s the only actual life-threatening allergy you have, right? _

 

_ I’m serious, you two need to talk about this shit  _ right now! _ The last thing I want is for you to get together only to have one of you just up and fucking  _ die _ because you didn’t want to have a mildly uncomfortable conversation about your damn health issues, I swear to God. ...no, I’m serious, STOP THE DAMN VIDEO AND TALK ABOUT IT RIGHT NOW! _

 

* * *

 

Shiro actually cringes a little as he fumbles for the remote, and out of the corner of his eye he sees Curtis’ shoulders shaking a little like he’s laughing. Yeah, that’s the Adam he remembers. He finds the right button and pauses the video. “Well… it’s a long story and I’ll tell you later if you really want to know but… I actually sort of  _ did _ get a new body.” He glances over and sees the look Curtis is giving him. “I’ve gotten checked out, Medical says they can’t tell I was ever sick, so... uh… so, just bee stings, right?” 

 

“Uh… yeah.” Curtis sniffles into his tissue and then goes into his right hip pocket and pulls out a little tube with a blue end and an orange end. “I always keep one in that pocket, it’s got instructions on it but--pull the cap off this end, stab me in the thigh with  _ that  _ end, hold for a three-count, and call Medical.” 

 

“Got it.” Shiro nods. “Okay. Not too bad for a mildly uncomfortable conversation, I guess?”

 

Well, at least that gets a little laugh out of Curtis. And is it just Shiro’s imagination, or are they sitting closer together than they were a few minutes ago?

 

He won’t comment on it if Curtis doesn’t. And Curtis doesn’t. All Curtis does is reach over for Shiro’s hand again.

 

So Shiro just holds on to it and starts the video back up.

 

* * *

 

_...anyway. _

 

_ Takashi… you’re going to love Curtis’ parents and they’re going to love you. They’re great. Curtis… Takashi’s parents are, uh…  _ not _ great. They’re not going to actively fuck with you but… well, I told you about some of his issues and where they came from, and… yeah.  _

 

_ And you know you can still call  _ my  _ parents, they love both of you and I think they’ll be glad to see you looking after each other. In fact… I’d really appreciate it if you did, this is… this is going to hit them pretty hard... _

 

_ So...Takashi--good news, he’s a really good cook. And I showed him how to make curry rice from scratch, and oyakodon, and all the comfort food I used to make for you. He makes the best breakfast, God, I wish I could be there to see your face the first time he brings you breakfast in bed… he loves sweets and he  _ really  _ loves turtle cheesecake… lots of cream and  _ all  _ the sugar and maybe some chocolate syrup in his coffee… ground beef, jalapenos, and onions on his pizza…  He’s got that genetic thing that makes cilantro taste like soap and he can’t stand IPAs. His favorite color is dark blue and he likes woodsy scents, he gets this cedar and sandalwood aftershave from one of those bath bomb places online but I always forget which one, you’ll have to ask him. He… he’s so sweet and so kind, he’s got the biggest heart. He doesn’t get mad--well, sometimes he does, ask him about that time he said the fuck word and threw a brownie at my TV…  but it takes a  _ lot  _ to make him angry and he’s so good at dealing with it like an adult. He hates to see the people he loves hurting, and if you’re getting too down on yourself--or you’re not taking care of yourself--he’ll call you on it and then he’ll just… he’ll pamper you until you feel better. He’ll… he’ll make you feel like the most loved person in the world. _

 

_ Curtis, you’re going to be all that keeps him from living on like, cup noodles and protein bars and peanut butter straight out of the jar and chow hall food. No pressure. He’s not picky, he doesn’t like fish sticks or egg salad or hot dogs but other than that he’ll eat pretty much anything, and he loves anything home-cooked. He loves Swedish Fish but he doesn’t know why. He’ll want to take you out for ramen sometime. Let him. He knows where the good stuff is. He likes his coffee black… he likes pepperoni, olives, and tomatoes on his pizza but get whatever, he’ll eat what he wants and pick the rest off and put it on yours. Uh… his favorite color is purple, like… really dark, almost black purple. He usually just uses Pinaud Clubman aftershave--yeah, the grandpa stuff from the drugstore. Yeah. I know. It… it really works on him though, trust me. He’s so strong, and so brave and he wants to protect everyone and especially the people he loves, but sometimes he gets so caught up in trying to save everyone else that he forgets himself, and… he tends to kind of bottle stuff up, because he won’t want you to worry about him. I think you’ll probably be better at getting him to open up and getting him to rest when he needs to than I was, though. He’s so good with kids--I know you and I never really talked about kids, but if that’s something the two of you want… he’s going to be an amazing father.  _

 

_ Let’s see, what do you have in common… you both like movies where stuff blows up but there has to be a decent plot and some humor. No matter how many times you watch  _ A Christmas Story  _ you both laugh so hard you can’t breathe when the Bumpus dogs wreck the turkey. You both like to watch nature documentaries and stuff like that when you can’t sleep. You both like to go up to the roof and look at the stars when you’ve had a rough day. You, uh… you both wear briefs but not tighty whities, thank God. You’re both cat people. You both give  _ amazing  _ hugs. You both like to go dancing but you both give me attitude when I tell you I want to lead so it’ll be funny to see how  _ that  _ works out for you. You both hate black licorice and you both make faces and gagging noises when I eat it so hey, there’s something you can bond over right there, you fragile-tongued cowards. _

 

_...you both like driving out into the desert to watch the sunset. _

 

_ You both give amazing backrubs … you both liked being the big spoon with me but… I have the funniest feeling Takashi’s going to end up being the little spoon. You both like it when I... _

 

_...I should maybe, uh… not get too much into that part of it, I guess. You’ll… you’ll learn all about that from each other soon enough. This is running long anyway and I need to give Ryan his camera back.  _

 

_ Just… the happiest memories of my life all have the two of you in them. And I want you two to--God, this is some Hallmark bullshit here, right?--I want you two to be in each other’s happiest memories from now on. _

 

_ Take care of each other. I love you so much. Both of you. I always will.  _

 

* * *

 

The video ends, and the screen goes back to the menu, and Shiro can’t seem to make himself pick up the remote to turn the TV off. 

 

He wasn’t ready for this. He wasn’t ready to see Adam on that screen, definitely wasn’t ready to hear his voice, absolutely wasn’t ready to hear him say…  _ any of that. _

 

Neither was Curtis, judging by the look on his face and the tears in his eyes.

 

Shiro opens his mouth to say something,  _ anything  _ to break the silence, and he can’t. 

 

Since he’s gotten back to Earth, between the invasion and the new arm and the Godawful Altean-powered Robeast and the briefings and the repairs on the  _ Atlas  _ and the doctor appointments and all the tests to make sure his new body really  _ is  _ okay and that damn thing isn’t going to come back in the middle of a war and all the other shit he’s had to deal with since he got back, has he had  _ any  _ time to himself,  _ any  _ time to process his grief over Adam’s death, any time at all to just decompress for a little while?

 

And then he thinks about Adam calling him on bottling stuff up and… and that’s all he can take. All the grief he’s been holding back for the sake of the mission for the last few months finally catches up to him, and Shiro drops his head into his hands and breaks down. 

 

And suddenly, his whole world is warm and snug and there’s a faint smell of something woodsy, like cedar and sandalwood, wrapped around him.

 

Shiro’s first impulse is to pull away, but then he hears Curtis muffle a sob against his shoulder and he realizes how much Curtis needs this little bit of human contact--how much they  _ both _ need it, because  _ how long has it been?  _

 

How long since he’s been held like this, or held someone else like this?

 

How long since he’s felt like he had permission to let his guard down like this? 

 

And… hasn’t it been even longer for Curtis? With that whole weird time warp thing and all--and maybe he was doing his best to get on with his life but even when he  _ wasn’t  _ mourning the loss of someone he loved, even when Earth wasn’t fighting off an invasion by hostile aliens he never really did stay with anyone for long, other than Adam… and seeing Adam’s face and hearing his voice and hearing  _ that message  _ from him must have surely ripped the scab off  _ his  _ grief...

 

So Shiro does the only thing he can do. He wraps his arms around Curtis’ waist and they cling to one another, sharing their grief, sharing comfort.

 

“Thank you,” Shiro whispers. “I’m--I’m so glad he had you.”

 

“I miss him,” Curtis chokes out, and Shiro rubs his back. “I miss him so much.”

 

“I do too.” Shiro buries his face in Curtis’ sweater. It’s soft and it smells like a warm evergreen forest. “It didn’t--it didn’t happen on your shift, did it--” Curtis just nods and lets out a soft, hiccupy sob, and Shiro holds him tighter. “Oh shit, Curtis, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…” Because Shiro remembers, doesn’t he? The last thing he heard on Kerberos was Curtis’ voice, wasn’t it? God, poor Curtis, he’s had to go through this  _ twice,  _ and Shiro knows he can’t promise it’ll never happen again but if he could, he would. “He went out fighting, didn’t he?”

 

Curtis nods again. “He--he said he found a way through their shields, it was almost impossible but it was  _ something,  _ but that was just--just a couple of days before--” He tries to finish that sentence and he can’t, and Shiro pulls him close to let him know he doesn’t have to.

 

Shiro just holds on to him and lets him cry, and Curtis returns the favor. 

 

They stay there like that for a long time, long after the tears run their course. Curtis doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to get up, and Shiro knows he isn’t. They… they probably shouldn’t go to sleep together, Shiro knows that, but… well, they  _ do  _ need this, if just for a little while longer..

 

But then Shiro notices Curtis’ shoulders shaking. At first, he takes it for a fresh round of sobs but then… then he hears Curtis  _ snort  _ and he realizes what’s happening. He doesn’t know what’s so funny, but Curtis has such an infectious laugh that Shiro can’t help but smile too.

 

“Straight out of the  _ jar!?”  _ Curtis finally asks, muffled against Shiro’s shoulder, and Shiro can’t stop the laugh from bursting out of him. 

 

“Oh--one time! That was _one time!”_

 

“One time you did it, or one time he caught you?”

 

“I can’t believe this. I feel  _ very  _ attacked right now.” Shiro snuggles Curtis close against him to get the point across that he’s kidding and he feels Curtis relax and laugh a little more. He also hopes Curtis doesn’t notice the half-empty jar of peanut butter and the spoon on his counter. “I want to hear about that  _ brownie.” _

 

“Oh God. I, um.” Curtis buries his face in the side of Shiro’s neck. “I just--it was after we lost contact with you, one of Sanda’s spokespeople said something stupid on TV and I just… kind of lost it.” Shiro isn’t sure, but he thinks he feels Curtis’ face heating up. 

 

“Okay, but…  _ Curtis. _ ” Shiro grins, and he knows he shouldn’t tease like this, but… he can’t help it.  _ “You  _ said the F-word?”

 

_ “Yes!”  _ Curtis bursts out laughing again and snuggles into Shiro’s shoulder like he’s trying to burrow into it and hide. “God. I can’t believe he remembered that...”

 

“I can. You  _ never  _ swear and you said his favorite four-letter word. I  _ know  _ he remembered that.” Shiro pets Curtis’ shoulder a little. “You know he actually tried to tell me Keith learned it from  _ me?” _

 

They sit there a while longer, arms tight around each other. In a way, they’re still sharing their grief, but now the memories they’re sharing are the happy ones, the little things they can’t believe Adam actually remembered, the embarrassing things they can’t believe they’ve just been called out on from whatever afterlife Adam believed in, the ones that make them laugh through their tears.

 

And at some point, sitting here warm and snug in Curtis’ arms, Shiro starts to think this feels right.

 

The timing  _ sucks.  _ They’re getting ready to ship out for who knows how long, to fight a war on who knows how many fronts, and there’s no guarantee either of them will see the end of it.

 

And, well… there’s that little issue of Curtis being part of his bridge crew, and that’s going to require a whole set of conversations about keeping some healthy boundaries between their work relationship and their personal relationship, and in fact it might be a good idea to hold off on this entirely until they’re home. But on the other hand… again, there’s no guarantee either of them  _ will  _ come home after tomorrow.

 

It still feels right. But there are a lot of things they’re going to need to talk about, and the most pressing issue is...

 

“Curtis… listen…” Shiro pulls back a little, just enough that he can look Curtis in the eye (and  _ God,  _ he’s got the most beautiful eyes--no,  _ no, _ this isn’t the time), and takes both of Curtis’ hands in his. “If we’re going to do this… it needs to be because  _ we  _ want to, not just because  _ he  _ wanted us to.”

 

“Yeah,” Curtis says, nodding. “I’m glad you said it, because I would have if you didn’t.”

 

Shiro knows he means that. That’s one thing he and Adam could both always count on Curtis for--absolute honesty, delivered in the kindest possible way. “I’m not gonna lie to you…  _ I’d _ be okay with giving it a try, and I know how you felt about me back then--” Shiro can’t help but crack a little smile when Curtis’ ears start turning purple at that. “...but don’t feel like you have to do this because of that, okay? Just… take some time and think about it.” He squeezes Curtis’ hands. “And if you decide  _ you _ want to try it, let me know and we’ll… I don’t know, go for a walk or something? Not many date spots on the  _ Atlas,  _ I guess _ …” _

 

“We’ll figure something out.” Curtis lets go of Shiro’s hands, maybe a little reluctantly. “Hey, I’m not trying to force the issue here but I just realized… it’s getting kinda late and I know  _ I  _ haven’t had dinner yet…”

 

Shiro winces a little. “Yeah… me either. Think we can make the chow hall in time?”

 

Curtis wrinkles up his nose. “Eeh. Maybe, but… last night on Earth and all, do you  _ really  _ want Garrison food right now? That really good diner outside the gate just opened back up a couple weeks ago. I’d rather go there if that’s okay.”

 

“Yeah, good point…” Shiro can’t help but grin a little. “That’s the place with the chocolate chip pancakes, right?” 

 

“Now  _ I  _ feel attacked.” Curtis’ eyes sparkle, just to let Shiro know he’s kidding, and Shiro feels something warm and fluttery in his stomach. No, this really isn’t the time but  _ God,  _ he’s already weak against those eyes...

 

Or maybe he’s just hungry.

 

Maybe both. No--almost certainly both. And, well… chocolate chip pancakes  _ do _ sound like a good last dinner on Earth...

 

* * *

 

Some weeks later they find themselves on an alien carnival midway. It’s… it’s a long and weird but mostly benign story, and as so many of these long and weird but mostly benign stories tend to be, it’s partly Coran’s fault.

 

And through a series of events even Shiro isn’t really sure how to explain, he just won an arm-wrestling tournament. It was fun. It was a hell of a lot of desperately-needed fun, actually, and he’s seriously considering coming back  _ next  _ Clear Day if his schedule allows. Well, he  _ does  _ have a title to defend now, doesn’t he?

 

He didn’t see the Paladins show up until the finals, but before that… he knows Curtis was watching. He  _ saw  _ Curtis out there, more than once.

 

So once the Paladins put him down, he thanks them for their support and tells them he’s got something he needs to do, and he’ll catch up to them on the  _ Atlas  _ later.

 

Keith gives him a weird look at first… then he looks out into the crowd, nods, and shoots Shiro a wink and an unobtrusive thumbs-up.

 

Curtis hasn’t gone far. He’s actually hanging back as the crowd files out of the arena, and Shiro doesn’t have much trouble catching up to him. 

 

“Thought I saw you out there,” he says, one hand on Curtis’ shoulder. “Didn’t really have you figured for an arm-wrestling fan.”

 

“Eh. Normally I don’t care much for the sportsball and stuff, but I made an exception for you.” Curtis flashes him a little grin. “Gotta say I was a little worried about Tauler the Mauler, though.”

 

“Shit. _That_ guy.” Four right arms and he kept switching them off, and the rules just said _right hand,_ they didn’t say it had to be the _same_ right hand the whole match… “Wait.” Shiro raises an eyebrow. “That was the second round. You watched _the whole tournament?”_

 

“I missed your first match but… most of it, yeah.” Curtis cranks up the wattage on that impish little grin and Shiro feels his insides melt a little. “You put on a  _ really  _ good show.”

 

Well, now Shiro is kind of embarrassed, because he  _ might  _ have gotten a little too caught up in the showmanship, and he  _ might  _ have hammed it up a little more than he really--oh, hell with it, let’s call a spade a spade here, he definitely hammed it up a  _ lot  _ more than he needed to, and… he clears his throat and feels his face turning red. “Well… you’ve… you’ve seen me being a complete dork in front of an audience and you’re still willing to be seen in public with me… that’s a good sign, huh?”

 

Maybe it’s just Shiro’s imagination but… Curtis seems to be walking a little closer to him than is strictly necessary. 

 

“I was thinking,” Curtis says, one huge warm hand curling around Shiro's flesh-and-blood hand, “if you’re not doing anything else right now, I’d really like to go for that walk.”

 

Shiro isn’t doing anything else right now, and even if he was... he'd probably figure out a way to reschedule it for this. "Sounds good to me," he says, with a grin of his own.

 

But first… there’s a food stall right outside the arena that catches Shiro’s eye. It doesn’t fit the description of the stall Hunk warned them to avoid because whatever it was peddling was  _ not  _ meant for humanoid taste buds or digestive systems. And it’s selling what sure as hell looks like funnel cake--dusting of powdered sugar and drizzle of honey and all. 

 

Perfect.

 

Shiro buys one. It smells like what it looks like, and he pulls a little bit off and tastes it just to make sure it  _ tastes  _ like what it looks like. That cake is golden brown and warm and crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside and tastes like funnel cake. That powdered sugar tastes like powdered sugar. That “honey” is more of a fruit syrup of some kind, but it’s still sweet and delicious and strangely familiar, though he can’t quite seem to place it. He offers it to Curtis, and Curtis tears off a piece. He seems to approve, and Shiro lets him eat most of it.

 

Shiro tries not to stare when Curtis sucks syrup and powdered sugar off his fingertips. He doesn’t try very hard, though, and when Curtis catches him staring they both laugh.

 

They find themselves in line for something that looks like a ferris wheel. They watch it for a while just to be sure. There isn’t any screaming, there aren’t any unexpected transformation sequences or sudden movements, and there don’t appear to be any bits falling off it, so Shiro figures it’s safe enough. He hands over tokens for both of them, and the operator herds them into a car and closes it up.

 

From the top of the ferris wheel, the midway looks pretty much like any he’d see on Earth. Lots of colorful lights, food stalls, rides, games, all of that kind of thing. The view is amazing… and so is the company. 

 

They don’t talk, except to point out something interesting here and there. But at some point Curtis wraps an arm around Shiro’s shoulders and… 

 

Again, the timing  _ sucks.  _ But at least right now, here on this alien ferris wheel on this alien carnival midway, they have a few precious minutes all to themselves. So Shiro decides to make the best of it and rest his head on Curtis’ shoulder.

 

It still feels right.

 

The ferris wheel stops to let some passengers off, leaving Shiro and Curtis stuck at the top for a while. Shiro starts to say something, he won’t even remember what later, because before he can say it Curtis leans down and--

 

It’s almost nothing, just the barest brush of his lips against Shiro’s. Not a kiss--a question. And he’s waiting for an answer.

 

There are still a lot of things they’ll need to talk about. 

 

Shiro knows he has some capital-I Issues, and he knows he should probably be in therapy for a lot of them--and as kind and patient as Curtis is, dealing with those Issues is  _ not  _ part of his job description, either in his official capacity or in their personal relationship. And of course they’ll need to have that long talk about keeping healthy boundaries between their work relationship and said personal relationship. In fact, it’d probably be best if they kept this kind of quiet for now. Obviously, Keith knows something is up and judging by that wink and thumbs up, he’s okay with it, and he’s probably okay telling the rest of the Paladins about it, but… it probably shouldn’t be public knowledge yet.

 

But those are all things he’s willing to deal with, if Curtis is. 

 

And of course Shiro still loves Adam. Still misses him. He probably always will. 

 

He supposes nobody could understand that better than someone else who loves Adam the way he does.

 

So he stretches up and gives Curtis his answer--and then some. They’ve still got  a few minutes before their car reaches the bottom, after all, and then they’ll have to head back to the  _ Atlas _ soon after that. Who knows when they’ll get another bit of quiet time together? 

 

Curtis makes a soft, surprised noise in the back of his throat and then sighs and melts into the kiss and reaches up to lay his free hand on Shiro’s cheek.

 

Raspberries. That’s what that syrup tasted like. Or at least, that’s what the ghost of it tastes like on Curtis’ lips. 

 

This isn’t the life Shiro imagined when he was younger. It isn’t the life he imagined a few short years ago. It isn’t even the life he imagined a few short  _ weeks  _ ago.

 

He thinks there are a lot of things he should have done differently. A lot of things he could have done better.

 

But he sits here right now, in this alien ferris wheel car on this alien carnival midway, sharing this first kiss with this sweet man, and he looks forward to seeing where it goes from here.


End file.
